Such Great Heights
by pickalily
Summary: They soar with wings of freedom, but they can only fly so far. Various SnK drabbles.
1. Live

_A/N: Just a little place to put all of my drabbles about the SnK characters that aren't going into an actual fic or one of my pairing collections. Hope you enjoy this first one! (There are so spoilers from the latest chapter of SnK. You have been warned!)_

* * *

He wanted to see the ocean. He still wants to see the ocean. He just never thought it would be at the cost of someone else's life, especially not the life of Erwin Smith. He tells them he should have died. No one should survive a fifty-foot fall even if they aren't suffering from third degree burns all over their body. He repeats this over and over. Maybe if he says it enough, they can go back in time and give the serum to the Commander. They all shush him whenever he tells them he should have died. Mikasa and Eren insist that it was worth it while they hug him and sob.

He thinks the Captain hates him. Hanji – No, they're Commander Hanji now that Erwin's dead – tells him he's just imagining it. They tell him that the Captain doesn't hold petty grudges. Things happen and he just moves on. How can anyone live like that?

He can avoid talking to the Captain for the rest of his life if he wants. The Captain doesn't talk to anyone very much anymore. He just gives out orders now. Armin can't stand the silence between them. He would rather that the Captain glare, spit at him, tell him that it should have been Erwin and not him, so one night he catches Levi alone as he's keeping watch and blurts out, "You shouldn't have picked me."

The Captain doesn't look at Armin. He just sits there, motionless as ever, and Armin wonders if Levi heard him or if he just hates him too much to respond. He's about to turn around and leave when he hears Levi speak.

"You're going to end up tying a noose around your own neck if you keep talking like that." The Captain's voice is quiet even in the silence.

"Sir?" Armin says.

"You keep saying that shit. 'I should have died. The Commander should have been given the serum. I shouldn't be here.'" His tone isn't disgusted. It's neutral like it always is, which surprises Armin. "You almost died, but you didn't. The Commander wasn't given the serum. You were. You're here. It's that simple."

He feels stupid for trying to talk to the Captain about it. It figures that the Captain wouldn't want to talk about it either. He turns to leave when he hears the Captain sigh. Levi waves at Armin, gesturing for him to come sit beside him. Not one to disobey orders, even the simplest of them, Armin nervously takes a seat beside his captain.

There's a long silence before Levi speaks. "Erwin's dead. We can't change that." He takes another long pause before continuing. "You can regret our decision to choose you over him. You can hate us for forcing you to live. But with you alive, we have a chance of defeating the titans and we shouldn't waste it thinking about whether or not we made the right decision."

"But he was your friend," Armin says quietly.

"He was a good leader," Levi responds without even blinking.

Armin takes a deep breath. He asks, "Do you hate me, sir?"

Levi's eyes flicker to the young boy for a second. "No." They sit there together for a while, just staring out at the ruins of the Shiganshina District. "Go to sleep, Arlert.

"Yes, sir," Armin says, giving the Captain a salute out of habit.

The Captain nods in acknowledgement. Armin turns to leave but Levi speaks up one last time.

"Armin." It's surprising to hear his name come out of the Captain's mouth. He only ever calls them 'brats' or just refers to them by their last names. "I think Erwin would have approved of the decision."

The words make Armin speechless. He finds himself unable to form words, so he gives the Captain another salute before running off. He can feel tears about to form but he shuts his eyes and bites his tongue to choke down sobs. The old Armin would have cried, but he's not going to cry. Not anymore. He reflects on his captain's words. For a fraction of a second he doubts Levi's words, but he quickly shoves those doubts to the back of his mind, buries them deep so they'll never rise up again. The age of doubts is well over. It was over years ago but he's only seeing it now.

He's going to see the ocean. It cost the Commander's life. He'll make sure his sacrifice doesn't go to waste.

* * *

 _A/N: I'm not a huge fan of how everything in the latest chapter went down, but I'm still probably going to be reading the rest of the series. I'm much too far in to escape now. I don't think Levi would treat Armin that much differently after the whole serum thing. He'll probably just treat him the same as always. He's a practical guy and doesn't really let his emotions take over his feelings, especially when other people's lives are at stake. Armin might need a little nudge to stop blaming himself for Erwin's death though. Poor guy._

 _Feel free to suggest prompts in the comments or at my tumblr: pickalilywrites (I still need to upload all of my other fics on there, heh.)_


	2. Fight

Usually his eyes are full of fury and blaze with absolute hatred. Screw the blades he wields, maybe the emerald flames in his eyes can incinerate the titans. But there are times when he isn't filled with a lust for revenge, when the fires in his eyes soften and glow rather than burn.

When he looks beyond the walls he sees a great green expanse, an endless sky, and complete and utter liberation from the stone walls that have contained humanity for so long. He loves the wind in his hair, brushing against his cheeks as if to kiss him hello and greet him to the beauty of the outside world. He's risking his life fighting against fifteen-foot tall monsters just to grab on to the sliver of a chance that humanity will win, but it's a decision he never regrets making.

 _What are you fighting for?_ they ask.

 _I'm fighting for freedom,_ he answers.

* * *

She wraps the scarf around her neck tighter, breathing in the smell of the worn-out cloth. It smells of her blood and sweat and tears. The faint scent of her old home in Shiganshina lingers. A hint of Eren – his rage, his passion, his kindness – remains. And it's warm.

It's love, she thinks, this warmth. When she closes her eyes, clutching the scarf as tight as she can, she can imagine her mother and father giving her a loving embrace. She can taste Eren's mom's soup, the absolute best thing she has ever tasted in her entire life because it was so full of warmth and tenderness that it burned her throat going down and filled her belly for hours. She can see Armin and Eren, holding their hands out to her and looking towards the future.

 _What are you fighting for?_ they ask.

 _I'm fighting for the ones I love,_ she answers.

* * *

He flips through the pages of the book, marveling at all of the pictures. Seas made of fire, entire oceans of salt water, intricate flakes of ice that blanket the earth when it gets cold. His friends take an interest as well, sneaking peeks together with him despite the jeers of the other kids in their neighborhood.

He knows going outside the walls is dangerous. He's seen his friends get eaten, even stared at the jaws of one of those hideous beasts in the face. But it's not always going to be like this and he is confident that humanity will someday be able to venture outside without fear.

 _What are you fighting for?_ they ask.

 _I'm fighting for the future,_ he answers.

* * *

 **A/N:** I needed to write something that would comfort me somewhat during these rough times.


	3. Just a Story

They're looking for books to read for their book reports at Armin's house. He says that his house has a room dedicated to books but Eren thinks that his entire house can be considered a library. It seems that every visible surface is covered in books. They're stacked up precariously like various miniature replicas of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The books are arranged in away such a way that it creates a thin pathway for those that need to walk through the house. Eren's too frightened to move a muscle. It looks as though even the lightest of breaths might send a tower of books tumbling down. He only dares to tiptoe through the house once Armin begins leading the way.

Armin babbles about how he already has a book picked out (he's had it picked out ever since Mr. Ackerman mentioned there would be a book report in the beginning of the semester) and how he's read it a dozen times already. He's worried about whether or not he's fulfilled all of the criteria that their English teacher is looking for. He laughs nervously, confessing that he'd go and ask the strict teacher to look over his outline but the raven-haired man is far too frightening to even approach.

Eren nods. He doesn't offer any advice because he's too in awe at the book-filled house to comment on his friend's worries. "How many books do you have in here, Armin?" Eren interrupts.

"Huh? Er, I'm not sure exactly," Armin says. Most people would probably be annoyed at being interrupted but Armin is fairly used to it from Eren. He's grateful that there's someone even willing to stick around while he babbles about his favorite book or the latest documentary he found particularly interesting. "Most of these are my parents actually. They told me to keep my books in the library." He stops at a door and opens it, revealing a spacious room lined with bookshelves all along the walls. Light streams through the bay window, which is decorated with plush pillows in case anyone wanted to spend the afternoon reading. A few toy were scattered here and there – mostly models of airplanes and famous buildings, different versions of Rubik's cubes, or half-filled notebooks covering miscellaneous subjects – but it was fairly tidy and things didn't look like they would fall over if Eren so much as looked at them.

Eren lets out a low whistle. "This is still a pretty impressive collection of books." He walks around, running his hand along the spines of the books. "Have you read all of these?"

His friend laughs. "Not even close. They just kind of add up since I tend to get a lot during birthdays and Christmas, I guess." Armin takes a seat on the bay window, curling up comfortably with a book that was left there. "You're free to choose any book you like, Eren. Just make sure that it meets the page requirement that Mr. Ackerman gave us."

Eren nods. "Right. Thanks." He scans the shelves, looking for a book to catch his eye. His mother always tells him to never judge a book by its cover, but he has a feeling that he doesn't have the time to skim through the first few paragraphs of every single book here. Every book in existence from every time period must be held in this room. Paperbacks, hardbacks, old books, new books, and they all have titles he's never heard of. Armin must either be a secret vampire or have a lot of relatives because Eren can't see how he could obtain such a large collection of books even if he did receive them as birthday and Christmas gifts from relatives. He makes a mental note to get Armin a good video game on his birthday. The guy probably needs a break from all of the reading he did every now and again.

It's difficult to look through so many, but Eren has a couple picked out before he notices a faded book sitting in the corner. Although Armin has a number of books that have definitely seen better days, this one looks like it has existed since the beginning of time. Eren sets his pile of books on the ground and goes back to the one that had caught his eye. It's a thick hardback. The covering is gray now – Eren suspects that it had probably once been black when it had first been bought – and horribly battered and worn. Someone had read it so many times that the spine now has several cracks along its spine. Eren wasn't even aware that hardbacks could have cracked spines. Both the spine and cover are missing a title.

"What's this book?" Eren plucks it from the shelf, rifling through the pages that have yellowed with age. "There's no title on it." Numerous pages have been dog-eared and several passages have been underlined in faded pencil. Notes are scrawled in some of the margin but he notices that the handwriting doesn't belong to his friend.

Armin turns his head, squinting at the book in Eren's hands. Not recognizing it from a distance, he sets his book down and walks towards Eren. As he comes closer, Armin's face lights up as he realizes what book Eren holds in his hand. "That's an old favorite of mine. My grandfather used to read bits of it to me before I went to bed every night when I was really young. May I?" He takes it into his hands almost lovingly once the book is handed over to him. Despite its battered condition, Armin holds it as if it's the most valuable thing in the world, smoothing the cracked spine tenderly with his thumb. "It's called _To You, 2000 Years From Now._ It's written like a letter to the reader. My grandfather found it at the bottom of a box when he went to a book sale a long time ago and fell in love with the story."

From the look Armin is giving the book, Eren can tell that his friend loved it too. His friend's fondness of the book only makes Eren's interest in it even greater. "What's it about?" he asks curiously.

"It's not a happy story," the blond warns, a sad smile on his face. Seeing that Eren is still interested, Armin opens the book and flips to the first page gently. "It's about people living – no, not living, they're trapped – in these walls. They've lived there for hundreds of years because of these giant man-eating monsters lurking just outside. A number of people noble enough to sacrifice their lives to humanity fight against these monsters. It's hopeless, really. Humanity is almost extinct and they've got little to no chance of defeating them, but the fact that there are people who are willing to give up their lives for the sake of others…that's so inspirational to me. There are other really neat things that get introduced as you get further into the story: secrets, a corrupt government, hidden identities, betrayal, and unexpected villains." He closes it again and pats the cover. "It's really something. Are you thinking of picking this one out for your report? It's kind of lengthy but – Eren? E-Eren, are you okay? Why are you crying?"

Eren finds that tears are streaming down his cheeks and he doesn't know why. He doesn't remember the last time he cried in front of someone and maybe if it were anyone other than Armin he would feel embarrassed. "It's so sad," he finally says. His voice comes out as a whisper. He knows it's just a story but can almost see the courageous soldiers falling one by one at the hands of these mindless monsters. Anguished screams of mothers crying for their loved ones echo in his ears. Flashes of soldiers charging to their deaths flicker before his eyes. "That's such a sad story."

Armin's gentle hand on his shoulder snaps Eren out of his daze. "It's just a story," Armin says softly. He lays the book down in a random place on the shelf before returning his attention to his distraught friend. He rubs his hand on Eren's back, trying to comfort him as best as he can. "It's like any other story. It's not real, Eren. It's okay."

"I know," he mumbles, wiping at his tears with the sleeve of his shirt. It's now that he realizes how silly he's being and he almost apologizes except he knows that Armin isn't angry, just concerned. "I guess I'm just being a little weird…"

Armin smiles and gives Eren a pat on the back. "Hey, don't worry about it. I know a better book that I'm sure you'll like." After he's sure that Eren isn't crying anymore, he scurries away to the other side of the room and picks up another book, rushing over and gushing about what an epic adventure is in it.

Eren is only half listening to him. His mind is still stuck on the book that Armin had discarded on the shelf. He politely nods and fakes a smile as Armin rambles on about whatever fantasy novel he's recommending and pretends to take an interest in it. It has something to do with dragons and a young boy going on an quest to find them. These are admittedly the types of stories that Eren usually enjoys reading, but he doesn't want to think about dragons or knights in shining armor right now. He pretends he does though and thanks Armin, taking the book from his friend.

Armin suggests they go play video games but Eren declines. It's rather uncharacteristic of Eren to pass out on playing video games, but Armin shrugs and goes along with it. If he thinks it's at all odd when Eren says he'd rather get started on reading for his book report, he doesn't say so and Eren is grateful for it.

But he's not reading once the two find a comfortable seat in the library - Armin back in his place at the bay window and Eren coincidentally situated right below the shelf where Armin had left _To You, 2000 Years From Now_. He just scans his eyes across the page of the dragon book, not even bothering to absorb the words and keeping an eye out to see when his friend is too occupied with his own book to notice anything. Once he sees Armin hunched over with his face too close to the pages, Eren decides that's the perfect time to snag _To You, 2000 Years From Now._ He knows he could just ask Armin to borrow it, but there's something about the book that bothers him too much to just ask for it. The novel makes it into his bag and Armin doesn't notice at all.

Eren feels a bit guilty when finally leaves with the stolen book hidden in his bag but Armin still doesn't realize it's missing and just tells Eren that he'll see him tomorrow and to return the dragon book once their reports are turned in.

The worst part is that Eren doesn't even read the book. He doesn't plan on reading it either. He hides it in the corner of his closet, letting it rot there. Armin only asks about the missing novel once the next morning at school and accepts Eren's mumbled response about not knowing anything about where it went.

Eren takes it out every once in a while but he never gets past the cover. The flood of images – people dying, everyone crying for their loved ones, hideous monsters walking the earth – always overwhelms him and he finds himself crying again.

 _It's just a story_ , he tells himself every time as he shoves it back into his closet and repeats Armin's words. _It's not real._

And as he shuts the door, a voice in the back of his mind whispers, _But it's so sad._

* * *

 _A/N: I usually write Modern AU to avoid angst but ehhh... Sorry, Eren. Or maybe he's overreacting because he's "at that age." Is this something like a Reincarnation AU of sorts? Maybe._

 _Word Count: 1,933_

 _Prompt: Crack the Spine_


	4. Tears

He can't tell if he's crying or if it's just the saltwater on his face. He knows this was his end goal, seeing the ocean with Armin and Mikasa, but it's only when he's standing knee-deep in the water that he truly remembers. The rage that had consumed him for most of his life suddenly disappears and in its place is overwhelming happiness. Bliss. Joy. He doesn't remember the last time he smiled like this, grinning so wide that his cheeks hurt, and no worries plague his thought. It's just him and the ocean.

Eren hears Jean splutter when Connie and Sasha throw him into the water and he can only smile when Jean yells at them, complaining about the ocean water getting into his mouth. Eren doesn't mind the salty taste of the water. It makes him happy. Or maybe sad.

He licks his lips and tastes the salt of the ocean. It's funny because they taste just like tears. Maybe his tears but perhaps the tears of someone else. The tears of parents who cried for their sons and daughters, the tears of soldiers crying for their fallen comrades, the tears of his own mother as he abandoned her. And before he knows it his vision is blurry and now he knows he's crying.

So he renews the vow he made so long ago as he stands in the vast ocean. Those tears won't have fallen for nothing. The lives of those lost will have meaning and he'll free humanity of those walls, allow the rest of humanity to feast their eyes on the immense wonders of the world waiting for them just outside.

He hears Armin laugh beside him and the sound only solidifies his determination to fight for freedom. No more crying, he thinks to himself. No more tears.

* * *

A/N: I write a lot of canon for this drabble series. Anyway, if you want to suggest a prompt just head over to my tumblr (pickalilywrites) and leave a request. Or you could just leave it in the reviews, whatever works best!

Hopefully I'll find time to update this (and the rest of my fics) more frequently!


	5. Stupid

_A/N: Thank you for the reviews! They made me really happy. Yes, I do take prompts. You can just leave them in the comments below! Although I've only written about the Shiganshina trio so far, I do plan on writing more about the other characters in SnK._

 _This particular drabble follows Connie's thoughts on the RBA trio's betrayal. Please enjoy!_

* * *

Connie's lying there in the dark and only one word echoes in his mind: _Stupid. Stupid. Stupid_. He used to not mind being called stupid. True, his lack of intelligence rivaled that of Eren Jaeger's, but he always used his status as the bald-headed fool for good. In a world where inevitable death was waiting for everyone right outside a wall, joking around and being the idiot was a way to make people laugh. But maybe he's been stupid and naive for far too long.

A picture of Reiner, his head blown clean off, flashes in his mind and the first thing he feels is grief over the loss of his friend. That's when he knows he's stupid for sure. He knows he should be angry, distraught even, that someone he had thought of as an ally had betrayed him, lied to him, and had the balls to call him a friend. Maybe he's a little angry but he feels like he's in mourning more than anything. _Mourning what?_ he thinks. The death of a friend, perhaps, but Reiner was able to make it out alive. Perhaps what's even more foolish is that little sigh of relief he let out when he had seen Zeke, the Beast Titan shifter, snatch Reiner's body away from them. He's ashamed of the thought that he had then and still has now. _At least he's alive._

It would be easier to hate him, to hate him and Bertholdt and Annie, if they hadn't been comrades during their military training days. It would be even easier if they hadn't saved his ass a number of times.

He remembers almost pissing his pants when he realized that he had missed the titan's nape during Armin's plan. The last survivors huddled in that wooden box and acting as Titan bait. They were all going to get eaten because he had failed them. He turned around to face his death, expecting to peer into the jaws of a Titan before darkness consumed him, but he instead found the corpse of a Titan disintegrating before him. Annie was standing next to it, the blood already evaporating off of her blades. Mikasa was in a similar position next to the Titan that Sasha was meant to kill. His usual partner in crime was no longer smiling and was instead sobbing, hugging Mikasa with no intention of letting go. He felt the urge to do the same to Annie but found himself stuttering a barely audible thank you.

He never talked to Annie when they were in training. Even now he can't remember a single conversation – if they even had a conversation – with her. But he remembers this moment too well. He didn't know that look that was in her eye that day when she just nodded, a silent acceptance of his thanks, before walking off, but he's sure now that it was relief. Why relief? He doesn't know and it's even more confusing once he muses over the fact that she's the Female Titan. Many soldiers would be outraged but for some reason Connie isn't. Maybe it's because Annie spared his life. She didn't kill anyone in the 104th trainee squad. Directly, anyway, but did that really make it any better?

And Reiner. Reiner did really put his ass on the line just to save Connie from that Titan when they were trapped in Castle Utgard. He could have easily just played like he was frozen in shock and allowed the Titan to eat Connie. So why did he save him?

Prior to the showdown between the Scouting Legion and the Armored and Colossal Titans, Connie wouldn't have known that Bertholdt had a mean bone in his body. He was helpful during training, giving advice to people who were having a particularly difficult time controlling the 3DMG. Connie remembers a moment Bertholdt holding him steady as he wobbled upright. Connie wondered if at the moment, with Bertholdt talking to advising him to focus on his center of gravity, if Bertholdt and the rest were plotting their downfall already.

He shouldn't have been as shocked as he was when Reiner and Bertholdt turned out to be the Armored and Colossal Titans. He shouldn't have hesitated in attacking Reiner. He still shouldn't be wracked with worry over Reiner's well-being. He shouldn't be shedding tears over Bertholdt's death. He shouldn't be wondering about what the Scouting Legion will do to Annie if she ever gets out of the crystal. And yet he still does.

He turns on his side to Sasha, his confidante, and forgets for a moment that she's still in critical condition as he reaches for her hand. He squeezes it but it remains limp and it's the first time since the conflict with Reiner and Bertholdt that he feels pure rage. That moment ends all too soon though and then he suddenly feels guilty for some goddamn reason. Angry tears roll down his cheeks and he lets go of Sasha's hand. He rolls around on his other side so he faces Jean.

His hand doesn't even touch Jean's shoulder before Jean's eyes snap open. "What's wrong?" Jean mumbles. "You can't sleep?" For a moment Connie feels bad for waking him up but he just wants someone, anyone really, to talk to.

"Jean," Connie asks hesitantly. "Do you think I'm stupid? For trusting Reiner and Annie and Bertholdt? For still caring about them even after everything they've done?" He regrets the words right after they leave his mouth because he knows how stupid they are. They sound insane. Anyone else would have sought revenge after being betrayed like that, especially after the many lives those three had taken, but Connie can't find himself to hate them even a little bit. The only thing he hates is that they're not there with him right now to explain everything, to just tell him it was all a joke, to say that everything was a bad dream.

Jean's answer surprises him. "No," he says. "I don't think you're stupid for trusting them. We all did." He turns around and says no more. Connie doesn't push the conversation any further.

Maybe he was right. Maybe it was natural to trust in your comrades and be distraught when they weren't who you believed they were. Or maybe they were all stupid.

* * *

 _A/N: You know, I've noticed that there seem to be more active fic writers in the SnK fandom and that makes me incredibly happy! I'll try updating my fics more often as well. And thank you for the requests/reviews! I will try to get to them as soon as possible :)_

 _Prompt: Stupid_

 _Word Count: 1,055_


	6. Warrior

**A/N:** _More prompts about more subtle relationships, this time between Annie and Eren pre-Female Titan arc. Can be read as romantic or platonic EreAni although I admit I like to write fics that hover between the lines of romantic and platonic for EreAni. If you'd like a non-shipping or shipping one you'll really need to specify though because I can be pretty dense about stuff, lol._

 _Also, you can request an AU if you want since I'm not too picky about things~_

* * *

i.

 _Annoying_ is what Annie thinks when she hears him calling her name but the word _kind_ also pops up in her mind. Despite her best attempts to avoid befriending anyone in her trainee squad, Eren Jaeger still manages to find a way to get close to her, babbling about how awesome her fighting moves are and begging her to teach him. He seeks her out during combat training so that they can be partners, asking her to pair up with him and then dragging her away before Mikasa can chase him down. ("She goes way too easy on me!" he complains. "It's not good if she's letting me throw punches at her.") Before she knows it, she's used to him appearing at her side, asking her how her day is and complaining about what a hardass Keith Shadis is.

Against her better judgment, she allows him to get closer. She doesn't push him away when she's eating dinner and he plops down across from her, much to the horror of that Ackerbitch. She rolls her eyes when he collapses next to her after a rigorous training session, but in truth she doesn't mind that he interrupts her solitude. At times he asks her questions, sometimes they're as harmless as asking how she likes the weather and other times they're personal, and she always responds by telling him that he talks too much. Most people would probably be turned off by her behavior, finding it cold, but Eren always laughs it off.

ii.

"I like talking to you, Annie," Eren says one night while they're standing outside of the dining hall, finding a bit of time away from the rest of the trainees.

She likes talking to him too but she doesn't say so. She likes how he talks a little bit too loud, especially when he's excited. She likes how he's all right with silence and that he doesn't mind that she doesn't reply to everything he says. She doesn't tell him any of this though.

iii.

The first time Eren knocks her down in practice he lets out a loud whoop before he can restrain himself. The delighted yelp attracts the attention of Keith Shadis, who turns to scold him but is too shocked by the fact that Eren was able to catch his best hand-to-hand combat student to the ground to say a word. The rest of the class gawks as well, similarly surprised.

Annie begins to brush herself off, annoyed at the stares, but is surprised at the hand offered to her. She think about ignoring it but ends up taking it anyway, mumbling an embarrassed "thank you" to Eren as he pulls her up.

"I must have gotten lucky," he laughs nervously. "Sorry about that, Annie."

"Don't be," she says, flipping her bangs out of her face. "You got me fair and square."

His face lights up and she has to turn away for a second so that he doesn't see her smiling too.

iv.

Annie knows getting close to him would mean it'd be harder in the long run but she can't help herself. She doesn't realize that they're friends, at least that's what it feels like, before it happens and she can't go back in time and make it not happen. She doesn't know if she'd change it even if she could.

Maybe being alone for so long made her desperate for company, but why couldn't she have been friends with that Mina Carolina girl or even that idiot Sasha? None of them would be stupid enough to join the Scouting Legion at least. Eren was just asking for death.

She falls asleep cursing his green eyes and his black hair. She wishes she'd never seen him at all.

v.

 _Is this love?_ Annie thinks as Eren lies down next to her after being forced to run a few extra laps. Maybe. Maybe if things weren't so complicated and if he weren't so stupid. It's something though. _It's definitely something_ , she thinks. She doesn't want to think about it any further, but she also doesn't want these feelings to disappear. So she stays beside him and allows this moment to exist even though she knows leaving him now would be the easiest and best option.

"Annie?" Eren says sleepily. He's nodding off again like he tends to do after a particularly strenuous exercise. "What are you thinking about?"

Normally she wouldn't respond at all but this time she answers. "I'm thinking about how nice it is right now," she replies, "being here with you."

"Yeah," he says, letting out a content sigh. "This is nice."

* * *

 **A/N:** _I was listening to my Spotify songs and "Warrior" reminded me of Annie. I'll probably write another more in-depth fic about it for her but the line that stuck out to me in particular was "_ Let love conquer your mind/Just reach out for the light." _I feel that she could use a little love in her life, especially since she has to deal with some pretty dark tasks and that those little moments she had with Eren were one of the more "light" moments where she allowed herself to be, you know, kind of happy._

 _Thanks for reading!_

Prompt: _Warrior (_ AURORA)

Word Count: 770

Bonus: _For those of you interested in another EreAni drabble, you can check out my other one here: pickalilywrites tumblr com/post/160434180011/an-people-were-really-nice-about-my-last-ereani (with periods where the spaces are, of course). Or you can just go through my tag (/tagged/Ereani)_


	7. Nervous

**A/N:** _My midterms ended so here's another fic to celebrate. Bertholdt's so hard to write for, at least for me, because he's so much more reserved and there's not really a lot of insight on his history like we had for Annie or Reiner. Hopefully this is kind of an accurate take on him lol._

 _My cousin also gave me access to her Netflix account so if I don't update for a while, it's because I've been binge-ing a bunch of TV shows._

 **Prompt:** _Nervous_

 **Word Count:** _1,093_

* * *

Is it cruel, he wonders, to consider Reiner lucky? Perhaps, but Bertholdt envies his friend for being able to forget his warrior persona and become a new person, one who doesn't remember that they're a trained mass murderer. He knows he shouldn't – it's not like Reiner does it by choice, it's more of an unconscious coping mechanism – but he can't help it. Reiner, when he's aware of his duty as a warrior, always whispers to him of their duty, the honor it is to serve as soldiers, the privilege it is to be one of those chosen to rid the world of this horrid race, and Bertholdt understands that, he really does. But Reiner's dissociate personality allows him to be removed of the guilt that follows after the deaths they've caused and Bertholdt is forced to constantly carry the burden of the deceased.

He's afraid to get close to those around him, scared that he'll consider them a friend and make his mission all the more difficult to carry out. But he's also afraid of keeping his distance, fearful of them being suspicious of his detached behavior, investigate, and then find out the truth about him. So he's reserved but friendly to those that approach. He helps Eren when the he asks for help mastering 3DMG and he assists Connie and Christa in grabbing supplies on the top shelf when they're getting geared up. He doesn't initiate conversation with his fellow trainees – he leaves that to Reiner – but he does answer questions that are directed at him, careful that he doesn't reveal too much about his past prior to the fall of Wall Maria. Despite his precautions, he still believes he's gotten to close to them.

Connie teases him about the beads of perspiration that constantly appear on his forehead. "Was training a little too much for you, Bertholdt?" Connie laughs. "It wasn't that bad. Or maybe you're just nervous about facing the Titans?"

He's nervous about something, certainly, but it's not the Titans. An image of Connie being grabbed mid-air by a Titan flashes through his mind. Terrified screams echo in his mind before ending abruptly when the Titan bites Connie in half, blood spattering everywhere. And all of that would be his fault. But Bertholdt only laughs, a shaky chuckle, and says, "Maybe."

Everyone dies, he tells himself. What difference did it make if he just sped up the process? These people, he reasons, have to die sooner or later. And while he tells himself this repeatedly, none of that makes him feel any better.

He tries to reach out to Annie, hoping to have at least one person to confide in, one that didn't lose themself in order to forget their sins, but she isn't interested in listening to anything he has to say. The first time she dismisses him, telling him that it didn't matter how troubled he was about their mission. She was not going to be his confidante and talking about any of it would compromise the mission if anyone happened to overhear. The second time he tries to talk to her after dinner but she immediately walks past him, disappearing into the girls' barracks where he wouldn't be able to reach her. The third time her eyes gloss over and it's apparent that she's not listening to a word he's saying and he decides that confessing to a brick wall would be more helpful than talking to Annie. Maybe that's how she coped, by isolating herself from everyone. Maybe it would have been wise for him to follow in her footsteps, but he's already acquainted with those in the 104th trainee squad and pulling away from them now would only make them suspicious his odd behavior.

So he keeps it bottled inside of him, all of his guilt and worries and concerns, and copes as best as he can but he knows that his anxiety shows. His smiles are strained, his voice meek and shaky, and his movements tense. He wonders when people will notice it's not nerves from the idea of fighting Titans. He wonders when people will suspect him of being the enemy.

When he knocks down the Wall surrounding District Trost, he's sure he's still in the clear. The soldiers around him are too concerned with surviving, killing Titans, and saving civilians to even give him a second thought. He can't help be feel relieved that he's safe for now, but how much longer can he keep this up?

As he's surveying the area, someone lands next to him. "Bertholdt!" the soldier calls.

Bertholdt turns and sees Marco, a trainee in his trainee squad that managed to end up in the top ten graduates. For some reason, the appearance of his freckled friend calms him if only for a second. After all, Marco is one of the trainees that Bertholdt knows is going to join the Military Police. That's one less person he'll have to kill, he thinks. "Marco!" he says, surprised.

"Are you alright?" Marco asks. He's breathing a little heavily but Bertholdt doesn't doubt that he'll be running back out into the field to defeat more Titans soon. "You were just standing there. Do you need to retreat?"

"Ah, no," Bertholdt says hurriedly, cursing himself inwardly for getting lost in his own thoughts instead of being alert. "I was just on lookout for more Titans."

"Nervous?" Marco asks.

He wipes the back of his hand on his forehead and, unsurprisingly, it comes off covered in sweat. "I suppose I am," Bertholdt says, letting out an anxious laugh.

"Well," Marco says, laying a hand on Bertholdt's shoulder. "Don't be. You're a skilled soldier– top three of our class, wasn't it? – so there's no doubt in my mind that you'll make it out of here alive." He gives Bertholdt a pat on the back and runs off before Bertholdt can say another word.

He knows Marco's words were meant to be comforting, but they only managed to make him feel worse. Was it right for him to be comforted by someone who would consider him the enemy if they really knew who he was? But maybe he'd never have to know. Maybe Marco would die today in Trost and never discover anything about the Titans. Or maybe he'd live obliviously and comfortably behind Wall Sina, working in the Military Police like he always dreamed. For some reason Bertholdt prays for the last outcome, as if it would make everything he's ever done less cruel, before leaving to face the destruction he's brought forth.

* * *

 **A/N:** _That interaction with Marco is after the fall of Wall Rose at District Trost but before the events at the supply depot. (Is that what it's called? That's so unfashionable.) So, you know, could have kind of happened. A moment of silence for Marco though. It was really nice seeing him again in episode 5 of season 2!_

 _Btw, I wrote another EreAni fic (it's more heavily implied than in the last chapter "Warrior") on my Tumblr but if you guys think I should publish it here, let me know! A link to it will be provided in the last A/N for "Warrior" for those who are interested._

 _I really do enjoy writing these fics about characters and their relationships to the others just because everyone in SnK has such a nuanced relationship with one another. It's definitely why I enjoy the series so much._

 _Cheers and see you guys soon!_


	8. Sleep

**A/N:** _Will probably get to the Levi and Hanji request soon. The future is just being a bit intimidating and unkind lately so writing is a bit harder than it usually is._

* * *

His mother always makes him a cup of hot milk when he can't sleep at night. The nightmares about Titans plague him at night, making him unable to sleep. She kisses the top of his head, ruffles his hair, and hums a lullaby as he drinks up the sweet syrup. Jean doesn't remember falling asleep, but he wakes up the next morning in his bed with the sound of his mother calling him for breakfast.

Ten years later and he still has trouble sleeping. It's the same reason as before but his nightmares are more vivid. After seeing the Titans in person, it's hard to keep them out of his mind. Even when he's awake, images of the horrific creatures haunt him. The first night in the Survey Corps, he welcomes sleep with open arms, happy that unconsciousness will take him so that he will no longer have to remember all of his comrades being ripped to shreds or the innocent civilians whose lives were lost. He awakens, shaking with sweat in the middle of the night, because even his dreams are haunted with the corpses of the fallen and the terrifying grins of the Titans. He curses his mind for not allowing him banish these demons even in the dead of night. In later days, he's terrified of sleep. It's hard to say what he's more frightened of, the nightmares or the real-life terrors he has to face outside of the Walls at every expedition.

It's a month later when he remembers the sleep syrup his mother made him when he was so young. He sneaks into the kitchen in the middle of the night, careful that the floorboards don't creak beneath him. He drinks it up, the sweet taste of milk and honey coating his throat. That night he sleeps peacefully, a blanket of darkness finally silencing the monsters that had frequently tormented his mind.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Don't mind me, just making my way through all of the characters in SnK. Exploring the characters is pretty fun._

 **Prompt:** _Sleep_

 **Word Count:** _317_


	9. Enough

**A/N:** _For the person who requested Jeankasa~ I do shippy requests but you have to specifically say it's a shippy request or else I just automatically go to platonic relationship fics, heh. The only time I won't do a shippy request if it's a veteran with one of the trainees. Not my kind of thing._

* * *

i.

Is it shallow to be attracted to someone because of how they look? Perhaps, but you've go to start somewhere. And, Jean realizes after watching Mikasa during training, he isn't so much infatuated with her as he is in awe of her. He's not so much entranced by how silky and dark her hair is than he is with how she flies through the trees during 3DMG training. It's not so much her unusual gray eyes than it is the dark and stormy look they have when she's fighting hand-to-hand during combat training, her eyes glistening as she comes in for the kill. It's not so much her beauty, he discovers later, than her overpowering strength that leaves all of the other recruits in the dust as they try to catch up.

He doesn't know when his feelings shifted from attraction to admiration but he's fully aware of it when she's ranked first out of all of the trainees. He finds his mouth stretching into a smirk when he hears her name called. She doesn't glance his way when she walks past – of course she doesn't since the only people she ever interacts with are Armin and that Jaeger idiot – but he clears his throat as she walks past and says, "Mikasa."

She turns to look at him and he suddenly feels nervous for some reason. It's a strange feeling. He's hardly ever nervous but he has to struggle not to fidget when she fixes her gaze on him. "Jean," she finally says and waits to hear what he has to say.

"Good job getting ranked first," he says. He knows how stupid the words are as soon as they leave his mouth. Everyone knew she was going to end up at the top of the class. Good job? Not only was that lame, that was a huge understatement about her abilities. And who the hell did he think he was talking to Mikasa Ackerman anyway?

His thoughts are interrupted when Mikasa says, "Thanks," and he thinks that perhaps it wasn't a mistake to open his mouth.

ii.

She wants to see Eren as soon as she's checked out of the infirmary and he tells her she can't.

"Jean, if you don't move from that door right now, I will not hesitate to crush your skull with my bare hands," she growls.

He doesn't doubt her for a second. After seeing her in action after the battle for Trost and during the 57th expedition, he knows she's completely capable of destroying him if she so wished. And she was certainly angry enough for it. But he stands against the door firmly, hands folder, and says, "No."

She glares at him and then her fist shoots out, punching the door just right next to Jean's face. He doesn't even have time to flinch. When she pulls her fist away, there's a definite imprint in the wood of the door and her hand is bleeding. She doesn't seem to feel the pain though and she just stares at him all the while. "You know what I can do. Now move."

He swallows nervously. "The doctor said you needed to rest," Jean says. "And I think your little display of power really just earned you another visit from the doctor and a lengthened stay in the infirmary."

She's only ever looked at him with indifference. The only times he's ever seen such a murderous look on her face was when she was chasing down Annie Leonhart. Seeing how Annie turned out, he isn't sure he wants to be on this side of Mikasa. Still, her being up and about isn't going to help her heal any better.

"Kirstein. Move out of my way," she hisses.

"You don't even know where Eren's room is," he points out. "The doctor is going to put you back to bed as you're wandering around looking for him."

She squares her jaw. If looks could kill, he'd be dead by now. Still, she knows he's right and sits down on the bed dejectedly. "You have to tell me where he is," she croaks. "He's my only family now. Please."

Mentions of Eren usually had his temper flaring but right now he can only see Mikasa in pain, an unusual and rare state to ever see her in, and he remembers seeing Marco's corpse on the street. He knows that pain. He finds himself taking a seat beside her bed, unrolling the bandages that sit on the dresser to wrap up her hand. "I'll patch up your hand," he says, already taking her hand and wrapping the bandages around it. "If you're up for it in an hour, I'll sneak you out of here and take you to Eren's room."

She's never smiled at him either, he realizes, but she's doing that now. It's not a head-over-heels-in-love smile. Not a you're-my-hero smile. It's a smile of gratitude, partly polite but also somewhat friendly too. And he'd take this one over any of the other smiles.

iii.

"Ow!"

"Stop being a baby," she grumbles, trying to patch him up the best she can. "It's just a little cut."

"You don't have to be so heavy-handed with if since it's so little," he says back. "You're surprisingly bad at this stuff."

He hasn't had a lot of one-on-one conversations with Mikasa prior to being picked as a member of Captain Levi's special operations squad. Despite all of the horrors and dangers they face, he's a little grateful that he's had chances to get closer together. Even if she's probably making his hurting him more than she's supposed to healing him.

"If you think you can do a better job, be my guest," she sniffs. It's funny to see her so insulted, especially since she's so much better than him at everything.

"Nah, this is fine," he replies. "You're almost done anyway, right?"

"Yeah," she says, slapping a bandage none too gently onto his cheek. "You were whining way too much. That cut barely went through your skin."

He smirks, running a thumb over the bandage on his cheek. "It's fine." Beautiful is usually the word he uses to describe her but right now, with her indignantly defending her horrendous nursing skills, the only word that comes to mind when he looks at her is cute. "You did a good job. Thanks."

"You're damn right I did a good job," she mutters under her breath.

He has to stop himself from snorting, knowing that doing so would only make her lose her temper again. It's nice, he thinks, knowing that there were some things she couldn't do perfectly.

iv.

He's nodding off when someone sits next to him. Rubbing his eyes, he yawns and blinks sleepily at the figure. "Mikasa?"

"Go to sleep," she tells him. "I'll keep watch."

Watch over Armin or watch over the Titans, he wonders. Zeke had retreated along with Reiner and the four-legged Titan long ago but there was a slim chance they'd come back for their revenge. So much has happened over such a short time that it's a bit overwhelming. He's surprised he can even think of sleeping at such a time. Then again, the rest of the squad was sleeping, probably exhausted after the battle against Zeke and the rest of the Titans. Mikasa seemed to be the only one who couldn't sleep.

He sat up. "No, it's fine," he says. "You should really be sleeping."

"It's fine." He waits for her to tell him to lay down with the rest of the sleeping soldiers but she doesn't. Maybe she wants his company. Maybe she just doesn't want to be alone. Either way, he doesn't mind staying awake with her. He thinks they're going to sit there in silence when she asks, "Do you think Armin will be okay?"

"Armin?" he echoes. He glances at their friend who was unconscious next to a sleeping Eren. Although fairly weak compared to the rest of them, Armin was one of the last remaining members of the 104th trainee squad, of the Scouting Legion actually, and he wouldn't be surprised if Armin successfully transitioned into a Titan Shifter. "I wouldn't worry too much. Armin's pretty strong despite how he looks. He's brave too. Not like me. If I can make it this far, there's no doubt that Armin will too."

The last bit about himself was an offhand comment so he's surprised when Mikasa comments on it. "Coward? Is that how you think of yourself?" she scoffs.

"You disagree?" He's rather surprised. He didn't think she noticed him enough to form an opinion of how he really was.

"You led the attack against the Armored Titan when Sasha and Connie were frozen in fear. Without you, we'd all probably be dead. What part of you is a coward?"

Just thinking about it sends shivers up his spine. Even when barking out orders to Connie and Sasha his whole body was shaken. He's sure there was a quiver in his voice as he commanded his friends to snap out of it and take action. Although they ultimately defeated Reiner in his Titan form, he'd never want to do it again. He never wanted to see another goddamn Titan ever again. "The part that's afraid," he finally answers. "The part of me that never wants to set foot outside of these Walls ever again. The part that would rather die than see another Titan."

She shakes her head. "That doesn't make you a coward. That only makes you afraid," she says. She pulls her legs up against her and rests her head on her knees. "Being afraid, that's natural. Even I'm afraid. But having fears doesn't make you a coward. Being a coward is when you're frightened and you do nothing except cower in the corner, complaining about your fate but doing nothing to change it."

It's strange for him to hear about Mikasa being scared. He had always seen her as fearless, but he supposes that being fearless didn't mean that fear was absent. It was as present in her as it was in him. He supposes he should thank her for her words but he doesn't think it's necessary. They're as much as a comfort to her as they are to him. So he pulls his cloak over her shoulders and tells her, "Go to sleep."

She frowns but doesn't protest like he thought she would. She only leans back against the wall of the broken house they're taking shelter in, extending her legs so that they're almost touching his but not quite. "You should go to sleep too," she says quietly.

"It's fine," he answers. "I'll go to sleep soon."

Mikasa doesn't say anything else to him and he doesn't either. It's been a while since they had a good rest. He must have nodded off sometime during the night but he wakes up for a half a second and vaguely realizes that Mikasa's head is resting on his shoulder. If this had happened in his trainee days, he'd be over the moon. Now, however, he just appreciates the fact that there's someone in the world that understands him.

v.

She knocks on the doorframe even though the door is already open. "Are you ready?"

"Yeah," he says, grabbing his cloak on the way out. He'd never imagined that he'd be walking beside Mikasa like this. It seems like he had always been fantasizing about her but none of his dreams could have shown him just how amazing she is, with her frighteningly hot temper and her deep loyalty for those she loves. Somehow, he thinks, he likes this real her that he had gotten to know far better than the ideal Mikasa that his imagination had created years ago when her first laid eyes on her. "So, the ocean. Who would have thought? And when I first started out in the military all I wanted was the sweet security that Wall Sina would have provided me."

She chuckles. "If you could go back in time, would you go back and trade places?"

He doesn't even wait a beat before replying. "No." His answer is firm and final. "I wouldn't go back. Not for any of it."

"Oh?"

"Not after everything that's happened," he says. He used to be nervous talking to her but now he can't even remember why he found her so intimidating. "I used to be okay with living in oblivion, but I've been through too much to turn back now. I want to be there when it ends."

"And if it doesn't end well?" she asks.

"Doesn't matter," he answers. "I want to be there. If the oceans rise, the Walls tumble down, everything turns to ash, I want to be there to see it."

"Well," she says. "At least we won't be alone if that happens."

Maybe if this were romance story, one with less death and more happiness, he'd reach out and take her hand. That might have even been something he would have done had he not faced all of those tragedies during his time in the Scouting Legion. But he just basks in this moment he's spending together with Mikasa, walking side by side with her. That's enough for him right now.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Anyway, thanks for all of the reviews lately! They really get me into the mood for writing._

 _Feel free to drop more request~_

 **Word Count:** _2,215_


	10. Monster

**A/N:** _Spoilers from the SnK manga so you probably shouldn't read unless you're caught up with it! Just exploring writing more characters (although it's another one of the Shiganshina Trio, heh.)_

* * *

When he first finds out the circumstances of Commander Smith's death, he feels as if he might as well have killed the Commander himself. How is it that someone so highly-esteemed, someone who is – no, was – their best chance for victory, is now a rotting corpse while a pathetic soldier such as himself is still breathing. What exactly led Captain Ackerman to inject him with the serum instead of the commander of the Scouting Legion? Part of him hates the Captain, part of him even hates his friends, for choosing him over the commander. If anyone should be alive right now, it should be Commander Smith. While he doesn't doubt Hanji's intellect and leadership skills, they don't possess the one ability that allowed Commander Smith to rise above the rest – the ability to sacrifice the lives of others to advance humanity.

It takes a certain kind of cruelty, Armin thinks as he lies on his bed that morning, to be able to lead others to their death. Does Hanji have that kind of capacity? They're able to think up tools and gadgets to use against the Titans – the guillotine to keep Titans away from entering the hole in the Wall, the clever net mechanism that ensnared the female Titan, the thunder rods that were able to shatter the outer shell of the Armored Titan – but would they be able to live knowing that their next orders might be to send their comrades to their doom.

Perhaps it was wrong to be so critical of Hanji. After all, Commander Smith's leadership of the Legion couldn't be compared to any of the predecessors. Many of the commanders had either died or retired, driven mad by the tragedy that the job forced upon their shoulders. Not Erwin Smith. He barked out orders without hesitation, building up the morale of his soldiers only to kill them off. Does anyone really possess that level of cruelty?

 _You do_ , a voice whispers in his head and it sends chills up his spine. His first reaction is to deny it yet his mind insists that he pursues this idea. Timid Armin Arlert as an authoritative, detached leader? He couldn't see it. Except…

He recalls the time when the recently graduated trainees had taken refuge into the Titan-infested fortress with no way to get to the supplies lest they risk the chance of getting eaten. Any normal person would have waited on the slim chance that the veterans would come to their rescue. Had he been more desperate or frightened, maybe he would have been among those who had taken a gun to his head and blown it off. He shudders just thinking of it. But, no, instead he formulated a plan, one that risked the lives of every last person who was left in the fortress. Those who were closer to him – Marco, Mikasa, and even Annie before he knew she would betray them all – had assured him his plan was their only chance. Was it out of desperation that he had thought of it or just complete lack of care for his friends' possible deaths?

He wants to brush this off as a mere coincidence, accidental proof of his similarity to the late commander, but he remembers the lies he's spouted, ones that he had only formulated for a second before shouting them at the enemy. He's lied about Eren dying and Annie getting tortured. He remembers the faces of those he's lied to and what strikes him especially is how much he didn't care for their shocked faces. Bertholdt's is the most striking to him. Gentle Bertholdt, who Armin couldn't fathom hurting anyone prior to finding out his true identity as the Colossal Titan, with an absolutely grief-stricken face when he hears Armin speak of the torture Annie is going through at the hands of the Survey Corps. And he remembers not giving a shit about Bertholdt's broken heart or his broken soul, just as long as he believed Armin enough to let down his guard. Somehow that's even crueler, he thinks, than anything Erwin Smith has ever done. At least anything he's ever known Erwin Smith to have done. It's one thing to send nameless soldiers off to the battlefield, but it's another thing entirely to tear apart the people you considered comrades for the sake of saving yourself.

So perhaps they aren't unalike, the commander and he, Armin thinks. He's not sure whether that new revelation should comfort him or shock him. He finds himself strangely accepting it – all of the things he's done and where he is now – and lets out a sigh. So maybe he could be the person to make those harsh decisions of life and death. But Hanji would have the final say on what to do and perhaps their humanity will be able to keep him from killing them all. He finds relief, only a tiny bit of relief, at the thought and sighs as he gets up from his bed, pulling his uniform on as he prepares himself for the expedition beyond the Wall.

Everyone treats him the same. They try to anyway. Mikasa and Eren are always smiling when they greet him but he can always see a hint of guilt in their eyes because of the price they paid for his life. Connie can't quite look him in the eye whenever he talks to him. Jean still talks to him but he keeps their conversations as quick as possible and mumbles as he disappears to finish some task he forgot about. Captain Levi tells him not to worry about anything, that he doesn't blame him for anything, but Armin knows that a part of the captain is lying because of the dull gray of his eyes. The only person who outright blames him is Hanji, who sarcastically asks him how it is to be up and about. Captain Levi says to just ignore them, that the stress of becoming the next commander is just getting to them and to not pay any attention to anything Hanji says. Still, Armin appreciates the new commander's brutal honesty. The Commander's brutal honesty as well as Flocke's.

Flocke hates him. He can see it in the soldier's eyes. They're filled with malice, complete and utter loathing. Armin can understand why. After all, he kind of hates himself too for being the one who survived instead of Commander Smith. Still, there isn't anything he can do. If he could turn back time and change the outcome he would, but he can't.

He's about to turn around and leave but Flocke walks up to him, his steps quick and angry, and the soldier opens his mouth. "I still think that you should be the one dead." His words are quaking. He's not nervous, he's just angry, Armin realizes. It's taking all Flocke's self-control to stop from shouting. "With Commander Smith we had a sliver of a chance at least. The rest of the Legion were too caught up in their emotions to make the right decision for humanity and it's going to cost us. All because of you."

Armin isn't even angry at hearing these words. He understands Flocke's rage. Still, he hears himself saying, "Well, we've ended up with me so I guess we'll have to make do." He pushes past Flocke to head towards the stables but Flocke grabs onto his arm, holding him back.

"Why you?" Flocke asks. "What made you so goddamn special enough to save?"

"Maybe," Armin replies, recalling the words that Eren told him Flocke said as he begged them to save Commander Smith's life, "it's because I'm as much as a monster as Erwin Smith."

It must be the tone of his voice or perhaps the gleam in his eye when he says this, but something about Armin makes Flocke let go as if Armin had burned him. His eyes are filled with fear and he stumbles as he runs away.

Strangely, he doesn't feel anything as he watches Flocke's retreating figure. He doesn't feel anything at all.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Just note that these aren't my own personal feelings about how I feel about Erwin Smith lol. He's rather...complicated. I really like the parallels between him and Armin though because, at least in the beginning of the manga/anime, people don't really see the side of Armin where he leads people and then boom! he suddenly makes these huge decisions that are about as risky as Erwin's. So, you know, fun stuff. I also just really wanted to write a little bit of Flocke somewhere lol._

 **Prompt:** _Monster_

 **Word Count:** _1,356_


	11. Please

**A/N:** _I won't be writing very much in the next two weeks due to exams but I expect to write a lot more of these drabbles this summer because I am sadly unemployed at the moment. But I guess I have my last summer of relaxing before senior year hits? Anyway, thanks a bunch for all of your kind words! They really mean a lot to me and it makes me more motivated to write lol._

 _People on tumblr always really like my EreAni fics (and there really isn't an abundance of those sorts of fics lately) so, you know. Here's another one!_

* * *

They won't let him see her. It's because she's dangerous, a threat to humanity. He thinks – no, he knows – that they're lying. She's encased herself in her own crystal prison. That's not something someone dangerous would do, it's a complete act of desperation from someone who has nowhere else to run to. Mikasa says that he's better off never seeing Annie again. Good riddance. But she wasn't the one who had to look at Annie right before she hid herself from the world. She didn't see Annie crying. She'd never understand.

He thinks Armin might. Armin knows, after all, that Annie isn't a bad person. He's sure that Armin would at least consider sneaking past the guards to see Annie but Armin gets flustered, trying to find an excuse to not see her. "I don't think that'd be a good idea, Eren," Armin mumbles. "She's being put under surveillance for a reason. And if anyone knows that you went to see her… well, I've known you my whole life. Other people might not be so trusting of you if they find out about you making your way to another shifter."

Eren tries to shrug it off as if he understands. Truthfully, he's so angry he could throw a punch at his friend. There is logic to what Armin says but all Eren has to do is look at his friend's face and know that there's more reason as to why Armin won't help him see Annie. Armin knows Eren had purposely let Annie get away, lock herself up in her own crystal chrysalis. Knowing how impulsive his friend is, there's no knowing what could happen when Eren finally sees Annie after everything had happened.

But Eren swears he only wants to see her. Breaking her out is a brief flash of an idea in the back of his mind but he's not sure if he could even if he wanted to. He just wants to stand in the same room with her. There's no use in asking her questions, he knows. She'd never be able to answer. She probably won't even hear what he's saying. He'd ask them anyway though because he wants to know. She was never the warmest person. Hell, she probably thought he was annoying for always pestering her during the training days but he never thought of her as cold. Detached, perhaps, and uninterested in getting to know people, but she was never unkind. She even helped him learn how to fight. Why would she do that if she was just going to kill them all later? Was the laugh she gave after being found out one of cruelty or one of relief for not having to keep any more secrets from them? Had they actually been friends at one point or was all of that just a lie?

He ponders those questions alone in his bed at night. They keep him awake. He looks over to Armin's sleeping figure in the bed across from his. His friend is muttering about something, saying something about great bodies of salty water and oceans made of fire. They're dreams from a less complicated time. He's surprised Armin can sleep at all. Then again, Armin can sleep through anything.

One night as he's staring at the ceiling the door creaks open ever so slightly and Eren sits up immediately. He's about to open his mouth to ask when he recognizes the bald-headed silhouette of his comrade.

Connie, a finger on his lips, has an apologetic smile as he slips into the room. "Eren," he says, his voice kept at a hushed whisper lest he wakes up Armin. "How are you?"

"I'm, er, fine," he answers. His brain is a bit rattled at the appearance of Connie. It's not that Eren doesn't like pleasantries, but it's strange to sneak into someone's room in the middle of the night when everyone's sleeping just to check up. "What are you doing here?"

His friend takes a tentative seat at the edge of the bed, looking a bit nervous. "I heard that you wanted to see Annie," Connie says. "I wanted to, you know, help you."

"Help me?" Eren repeats. "How did you even find out?" He appreciates the offer, but he's sure that if word keeps spreading about his wish to see Annie he'd find himself locked up in a cell again. His last experience in a military cell were… unpleasant, to say the least.

Connie rolls his eyes. "You're the last person anyone would ever trust with a secret," Connie says. "If don't want people to know about you wanting to see Annie, lower your voice a little, will you?"

Eren grimaces. Mikasa always told him he had a loud voice and he does get rather noisy when he feels strongly about something. He'd definitely have to keep that in mind in the future. But in the meantime… "You have a plan?" he asks Connie, glancing over at Armin to make sure his roommate is still asleep. As expected, Armin is still slumbering like a newborn babe.

Connie leans in closer to Eren. "Jean – don't give me that look, Jean's not as big of an asshole as you think he is – Jean has this really good homemade sleeping tonic for when you have insomnia. He's taught me how to make it so I wouldn't have to wake him up every night to make it for me, heh. Anyway, I could switch the drinks when the guards are brought their midnight meal. They won't notice a thing – it'll just taste like milk – and then they'll be knocked out for a pretty long time. You could sneak in there when they're asleep. They won't notice a thing."

He can't help but wrinkle his nose at the mention of Jean's name. "Are you sure this is going to work? After all, if this is Jean's recipe, how reliable is it?"

His friend snorts. "I've taken it more times than I can count and every time I do I sleep like a dead man. Trust me, you could probably hold a screaming child above them and they wouldn't even crack open an eyelid."

Eren's still skeptical but, hey, it's not like he had any other options. Besides, Connie's offer does seem sincere and he truly looks as if he believes the plan will work. What other choice did he have, really? "Alright, let's try it out," Eren finally says.

"Great! I'll knock on your door the night I slip them the tonic. Just three short raps and that'll be your signal to know that you can visit her cell that night." Connie's smile fades and Eren's surprised to see the serious expression appear on his face. "When you see Annie," Connie says, his voice low. "Can you ask her why she saved me back in Trost? Back when we were stuck in that fortress… I couldn't kill one of the Titans down in the basement – I missed the nape of its neck - but Annie took it down for me and she didn't have to. She _saved_ me Eren. She saved all of us. "

Until now, it's never occurred to Eren that Connie has his own motives for helping him see Annie. "Of course," Eren stutters. "You can just come with me, you know. It might be better for you to see her yourself even if she'll never respond."

Seeing that sad smile on Connie's face. He's always imagined Connie to be a bit of a clown, someone that always laughed and that people always laughed with. He's only now realizing that Connie is also suffering from a friend's betrayal just like he is. "I could," Connie says. "I should. But it's not like I really talked to her. I don't know if she'd even want to see me. You talked to her though. I think… if she considered any of us a friend, it was you."

A part of Eren wants to deny this. Part of him wants to say that Annie couldn't have been friends with any of them but there's a kernel of truth to it. She wouldn't have taught him how to fight – how to use his opponent's strength, how to fake a punch, how to defend himself - if that were true. She probably wouldn't have even given him a second glance that day when he and Reiner had bothered her during training. And yet she had.

"Besides," Connie laughs, suddenly interrupting Eren's thoughts, "I'd probably just annoy the fuck out of her or something." He pats Eren on the back. "I'll leave now before that little brainy coconut head wakes up. I'm surprised he hasn't woken up yet."

Eren smirks at Armin's sleeping figure in the dark. "Yeah, he can sleep for days. His brain gets overworked when he's awake so it compensates by having Armin blackout for twelve hours at a time." He's joking but there's a tinge of bitterness in his tone. He wishes he could sleep that peacefully as his friend.

"Lucky bastard," Connie snickers. He gets up from Eren's bed and sneaks out the door, tiptoeing quietly. "I'll give the guards their food tomorrow. They should be out like a light an hour after midnight at the very latest. There's a good chance that they won't wake up until early morning but I wouldn't risk staying in Annie's cell for more than an hour in case anyone else comes by."

* * *

Eren's pretty sure he doesn't sleep the following days. How could he? It's not until a week later that he hears those three short knocks on his door that he practically leaps out of bed, trying to go as quickly but quietly as possible to Annie's cell. Connie must have disappeared as soon as he had given the signal because Eren doesn't see a trace of him after he opens the door of his room. He didn't know that he could ever be that quiet or that being so quiet to make everything so loud. He holds his breath after every step he makes, frightened that even the slightest noise would attract the attention of someone nearby. The stairs he takes down to the prison cells are endless. He can't help but breathe a sigh of relief when he finally sees the entrance to the cell, the guards slumped over in slumber. The sound of his sigh seems to reverberate around the hall and Eren winces, sure that the guards would wake up now. True to Connie's word, however, they don't even twitch.

Holding his breath again, Eren quietly searches one of their bodies to the key. It's hung on a string around one of the guard's neck. He can feel himself sweat as he slips it off, his fingers shaking. Eren gets away from their bodies as soon as possible. They still haven't moved a muscle though. He looks over his shoulder to make sure no one is coming. When he's sure there's no one approaching, he tentatively walks towards the door, pushing the key into the hole. It clicks open and Eren nervously turns the knob, pulling the door open quietly. He cracks it open wide enough to see the dim light of the torches reflecting off of Annie's crystal. He opens it wider and sees her sleeping body trapped in her self-made prison and her name escapes his lips before he can stop himself. "Annie."

Eren slips through the door, shutting it gently behind him, and makes his way to Annie. Most people sleep with a relaxed expression their face but Annie's eyes are shut tight. The tear Eren had seen rolling down her cheek the last time he had seen her awake is still frozen in place. If she's sleeping, she looks like she's having a nightmare. He wants to understand what drove her to do the things she did. He wants to make sense of it all. Standing before her, all he can think about how she felt so scared of humanity that she locked herself away from all of them. Would a monster do that?

He thought he'd be able to ask her all of his questions once he was face-to-face with her. Seeing her now – her tear still rolling down her cheek, the troubled expression on her face, the glass prison she built for herself - he finds all of the questions racing through his mind useless. There's no point if she can't hear his voice. There's no point if she can't answer. And while he knows she'll never be able to hear what he has to say, he finds himself leaning his forehead against the glassy surface of her prison. "Please, Annie," he whispers, voice shaking. "Please wake up."

* * *

 **A/N:** _As always, feel free to leave a request in the comments. Hope you enjoyed this one~_

 **Prompt:** _Please_

 **Word Count:** _2,123_


	12. Crazy

**A/N:** _For Gamer because they requested a Hanji/Levi based drabble post-Isabel and Farlan. Not quite sure how I did on this one because I'm not a very big LeviHan shipper and just wanted to focus on their relationship as comrades rather than go for a full-on romantic thing. Also, angry Hanji is always very hot._

* * *

She's crazy, he thinks. He's always thought so but Isabel had always told him he was too quick to judge people. After observing the crazy scientist for a while, he's sure he's correct with his initial assessment. There's no other explanation for her behavior. How can anyone leave the Walls with a smile on their face, knowing that the chances of being eaten alive were greater than coming back? What made it so that she was able to crack jokes even after seeing her friends eaten in front of her? Who could laugh after facing those nightmarish monstrosities? The answer to the last one: Hanji Zoe.

He hates her constant jabbering too. It's like she doesn't know the value of peace and quiet. Just when he thinks she's going to be serious she manages to slip in a shitty quip and a quick grin. He wishes Erwin would tell her to shut the fuck up. Hell, he's done so on a couple of occasions but the bespectacled motor mouth would only laugh at him in return, pinching his cheeks and telling him he was adorable. He's smacked her hand away every time. It should be apparent to her that he despises her company. She's more of an annoyance than anything. Erwin doesn't seem to think so though because he's still keeping her as a squad leader for some goddamn leader. He can hardly fathom how she's managed to hold onto the position for so long. Any person who charges headfirst into a mass of Titans carelessly, calling them affectionate names as she cuts them down, hardly seems sane enough to lead a squad.

"Would you fucking quit it?" he snaps one night after a particularly bad expedition. She shouldn't be this cheerful. No one should. And yet here she is joking about the possibility of sneaking in one of those ugly Titans into the Walls so she can do some crazy experiment on it.

Usually she ignores his rudeness and continues to talk about whatever it is she's blabbering about. This time, however, she stops, her smile frozen on her face. "Quit what?" she asks, laughing a little. Even now her tone isn't serious and that seems to fuel his anger even more.

"No one wants to hear your stupid ideas," he growls. He knows his words are harsh but he's tired of hearing her voice. Her nonsensical attraction to Titans would get them all killed one day, he's sure of it. "People have died today and you're here joking around. It's like you're a fucking psychopath."

"You think I'm crazy?" she asks him. Her voice is so quiet now. It's not exactly a whisper, but it's the softest he's ever heard her speak. There's a spark in her eyes that's different from the usual mischievous sparkle she gets. Somehow it looks familiar to him. There's a small smile on her face but it looks twisted and he can tell this isn't her normal carefree self. She's serious for once, he realizes.

He opens his mouth to tell her that, yes, he thinks she's absolutely bat shit crazy but she interrupts him before he can speak.

"Is it a sin for me to try to find happiness even after seeing my comrades have fallen?" she asks him. Her eyes are alight with fire now, one that he knows lights up his own when he's on the battlefield. The smile on her face has disappeared, a grim expression replacing it. "Is the only proper way to mourn my fellow soldiers to brood all day and mumble beneath my breath like you?"

"I don't-" Making her angry now is a mistake he realizes, but it's too late.

"So what do you call it then, Ackerman, when you burst onto the battlefield, felling Titans down left and right with your eyes blazing with revenge? When the rest of your comrades return, half of them beg to be let go because of the monstrous sights they've seen. Not you. You say you hate it but you like it. You like going out there and killing all of those goddamn Titans because it lets you vent out your anger. Because you don't have to hold it inside anymore and deal with Isabel and Farlan's blood on your hands," she spits.

Normally he wouldn't bother. He deals with pissed off people all of the time, but the mention of Isabel and Farlan's name manages to make him angry enough to bother with this stupid, goddamn, goggled, half-baked scientist. "You shut the fuck up about Isabel and Farlan," he hisses. "You don't have a right to even say their names. You helped lead them to their dooms. You're the one who made them think they'd be safe."

Hanji raises her eyebrows, her face in an expression of fake surprise. "Was that really me or was it you? You, who swore to protect them even when you were still living in the Underground. Was it me who abandoned them to get some dirty money after slitting Erwin Smith's throat? Was it me who left them all alone?"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" he barks. He turns around, throwing his fist at where the scientist is standing but it misses. His clenched fist hits the stone wall and the collision seems to echo around the hall but it doesn't hurt. He doesn't feel anything except angry.

If Hanji is scared, she doesn't show it. Levi doesn't even think she flinched when he threw that punch. Even more proof that she's fucking insane. "It's not like I haven't seen my own friends die in front of my eyes. I've seen their limbs torn off, their bodies in shreds. We've all lost people hat didn't deserve to die," she says quietly. He never thought she could be that quiet. "And we all grieve in different ways. Most people close up and try to run away. Other people – you and me – charge headfirst into what killed everyone they loved. I just happen to laugh at it."

"That's not the same thing," he tries to protest, but he can see that they're more similar now than he had ever thought they'd be. Than he had ever wanted them to be.

"So maybe I'm crazy," Hanji continues, "but maybe you're a little crazy too." Her voice is still soft but it's not angry. It's almost kind, he thinks.

And as much as he tries to resist this new thought, this new truth, he can't help but think that perhaps she's right. They're both crazy.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Thanks for patiently waiting for my return! I appreciate it deeply. I actually haven't had a chance to watch the SnK s2 finale (although I do know what happens since I'm all caught up with the manga)._

 _Anyway, thank you so much for the reviews and if you guys want to see any particular characters/pairings (although you'll have to be really specific if you want it to be a romantic thing because sometimes I just assume it's platonic since I'm rather bad with these things), feel free to let me know! Hopefully I'll update soon :)_

 **Prompt:** _Crazy_

 **Word Count:** _1,095_


	13. Sweet

**A/N:** _I totally forgot that I wrote this about a month ago and never uploaded it on here for some reason. I think I was trying to space out all the EreAni from the rest of the fics lol. I like variety._

 _I pretty much just wrote this after I had a doughnut hole so if you ever wonder where I got the inspiration. That was it lol._

* * *

She hates being here but it's not all that bad. At least that's what she's thinking as she bites into her delicate pastry. The crispy outer shell crunches between her teeth and she licks her lips, making sure not to waste any bit of sugar from her doughnut. A moan of absolute pleasure escapes from her lips before she can help it. It's been a while since she was able to indulge herself in her favorite dessert – they never had any in her hometown and the trainees visits to the civilian districts only came twice a month – but it always tastes as delicious as she remembers it. When she opens her eyes, she's surprised – and embarrassed as hell – when she sees Eren and his friends standing in front of her.

They all have different expressions on their faces, no doubt from observing her enjoyment of the sugary snack. Eren's eyes are wide with wonder, Armin looks a bit confused (or maybe that was concern?), and that Ackerbitch has that ever-present frown her on her face.

After hastily swallowing her last bite, Annie wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. "What," she says gruffly.

"H-hey, Annie," Armin says, looking nervously between her and Mikasa. The tension between the two isn't a secret among the trainees. The only people who don't know were those who either didn't care enough to notice (such as Ymir) or those who were too stupid to notice (such as, well, Eren).

Eren, that oblivious idiot, pulls up a chair across from Annie and takes a seat. She'd be pissed, but the infuriated look on Ackerman's face makes her a bit smug that Eren's sitting down with her. "We saw you across the square and wanted to say hi," Eren explains happily, ignoring the seething glare that Mikasa was giving Annie.

"Hi…" Annie says cautiously, being careful to keep an eye on Ackerman.

When Mikasa doesn't say anything, Eren jabs his adopted sister in the ribs and she mumbles a reluctant "hey" before telling Eren, "We said hi, could we go now? I just remembered that there were a few things we should pick up before we have to head back."

"Then you can go ahead with Armin then," Eren replies, waving a hand to dismiss her. "Just leave a few bags here so you don't have to carry them. I'll meet you back with everyone else in a bit."

Mikasa opens her mouth to protest but Armin tugs at her sleeve, probably knowing that if Annie and Mikasa were in the same place any longer a fight would break out.

"We'll see you later, Eren," Armin says, half-dragging Mikasa away. "Bye, Annie!"

Annie can't help but have a smug smile on her face as she watches Mikasa get dragged off. "Goodbye," she smirks.

Eren's not watching any of this, only amused at the smile on Annie's face. "You look really happy," he observes, tilting his head. He glances back at Mikasa and frowns. "Sorry about Mikasa, by the way. She was in a pretty good mood today but she can be kind of moody sometimes."

"I wonder why," Annie replies. After hearing Eren's multiple speeches about his stupidly naïve goal of defeating all Titans, she's pretty familiar with just how stupid he can be. Still, he always seems to find new ways of surprising her with just how high his level of idiocy is. Just like now.

Eren only shrugs, laughing. "Don't let it get to you. Mikasa's actually a good person even if she seems a little scary."

Annie can't help but scoff. "I'll have to take your word for it then."

"What was that thing you were eating?" Eren asks curiously. It's obvious that that's the question that's been on his mind since he sat down by the way he transitions into it, with no obvious connection to the last topic in their conversation. He does that sometimes, starts the conversation with something casual and then suddenly asking about what he's really interested. (She's had him sit down with her for dinner and ask about the food and then out of nowhere ask her about the combat technique she was using during training. His ability to switch from topic to topic so quickly sometimes gave her whiplash because of his poor transition skills.) He makes a big O-shape with his hands and held it up to his face. A green eye blinked through the hole. "It looked like you really liked it. Did they have those a lot in your hometown?"

She pauses, not quite sure if she should be answering any questions regarding her hometown. Then again, it appears that Eren is only curious about the food she was eating rather than her origins so she doesn't see the harm in pulling out the pastry from her bag and tentatively holding it out to him. "A doughnut?" she asks. "They don't really have these where I'm from… Did they not have any in Shiganshina?"

"Not really," Eren says, staring wistfully at the doughnut. "We had cakes and cookies for special occasions at my house, but nothing like this. I don't think any of the bakeries in my district had these."

Although she had intended on eating these all herself before returning to the training camp (there was no point in saving them since Sasha would usually find any food other trainees came back and eat them behind everyone's back), seeing Eren longing stare at the sweet treat she held in her hand made her feel a bit, well, guilty and before she knows it she finds herself offering the doughnut to him.

His face lights up, eyes wide in surprise and a giddy grin spread across his face, and he asks, "Really? I can have it?"

"Just take it," she mumbles. Kindness was not her forte and giving her things away for free, even if it's just one measly doughnut, makes her feel a little embarrassed.

He takes it delicately, much more delicately than she's ever seen him handle anything, and he takes a few seconds to be awestruck by the dessert he's never had the luxury of tasting back in Shiganshina. The first bite he takes is small, a little cautious, but with the first swallow Annie knows he's hooked by the pastry's sugary goodness. He wolfs it down, not unlike how he eats all of his food, but he's careful not to drop even a crumb of it. He's even sure to lick his fingers afterwards and Annie's a little pleased with herself with being able to introduce him to something so delicious. After he's done, he sits back and lets out a satisfied sigh. "That was amazing," he finally says. He sits up and leans forward suddenly. "Annie, that was really good! I can see why you like them so much!"

"Well, you can have another one if you'd like," she says, already reaching for the bag to pull out another one of the fried dessert but Eren interrupts her.

"I couldn't possibly!" he says, waving his hands about. "You probably bought those for yourself and it'd be kind of rude of me to eat another one. Oh! But I should probably give you something back as thanks." He's already pulling one of the bags Armin and Mikasa left behind and looking through it, trying to find the perfect gift to repay Annie.

"Er, you don't have to give me anything," she says. She has to admit, it's a little nice that he's even thinking of giving her something else.

"Hm, I don't really have anything to give you though," Eren says, completely ignoring her. He frowns when he pulls out a loaf of bread. "Bread's too ordinary – Mikasa always makes me get that every time we come into town even though we always eat a ton of it at the training camp – and the rest of our food is pretty boring too… Hey! What about this?" He pulls out a hoodie that looks similar to her own in style, just a shade of green a few sizes larger.

Having never seen Eren in anything other than his military uniform, Annie was rather taken aback with the hoodie. "Why do you have that?"

"Oh! I bought it!" he says rather proudly. "Mikasa said we should all buy a jacket or something when it started getting cold. I always thought your hoodie looked really cool on you and I saw this one in the store and decided to buy it. Er, Mikasa wasn't too pleased with it but she thinks I'm kind of an impulse buyer. I still think it looks neat though, but you can have it since everything else I bought is kind of boring in comparison."

"Eren, I couldn't possibly…" she begins.

"Or do you not like it?" Eren asks. He's visibly deflated at the idea of Annie rejecting his offer. "Ah, maybe you don't like this color or you're already content with the hoodie you've got on? It's a little late but we can go into one of the shops and I can buy you something you like?"

For some reason, the thought of visiting a shop with Eren by herself makes her cheeks redden and she grabs the hoodie from him before he can say anything else. "It's fine. Green is…great." She clears her throat. "It's just that one donut isn't worth a hoodie."

"Then I guess you'll just have to buy me more donuts later on our next trip to town," he laughs. A goofy smile sits on his face and Annie doesn't know whether or not she wants to punch him for being so nice or smile back. "Those were really good though. You've got great taste, Annie."

It's not like she doesn't like compliments, she doesn't get them very frequently so getting one always makes her fidgety. She mumbles an almost inaudible thank you but it seems to be enough for Eren.

He's about to say something else when the loud _bing bong_ of the clock in the town square reminds them of the time. "Oh shit!" Eren says when he glances at the clock tower. "We should head back before Shadis scolds us. Do you want me to carry your bag for you?" His hands are already full from the bags Armin and Mikasa left behind but it's so like him to offer anyway.

"It's fine," Annie assures him. It would actually probably be much better if she handled a bag for him but he refuses her help (typical Eren) so she just clutches the hoodie he gave her in one hand while her other hand holds onto the bag holding the few doughnuts she has left.

He's as chatty as ever, talking up a storm as they make their way back to the rest of the trainees. She really wants to ask him what he was going to say before the clock tower interrupted earlier but she's not the best conversationalist and before she knows it he's back with Eren and Mikasa and she's back with, well, Reiner and Bertholdt. Bertholdt, nervous as ever, splutters a hello while Reiner teasingly asks her what she's doing with the suicidal bastard so she tells him to shut the fuck up, shoving a doughnut in his mouth so he'll stop talking.

She spends the rest of the return trip back to the training grounds wondering what Eren was going to say, holding the hoodie Eren had given her and thinking about whether she should actually wear it.

It takes a while for Annie to finally wear the hoodie. She doesn't want to seem too eager and wear it right away so she just keeps it next to her while she sleeps. A few nights later she feels guilty about leaving it unworn – after all, it was a perfectly good piece of clothing and she didn't want it to go to waste – so she wears it to bed and finds that it's surprisingly warm and comfortable. She's never really considered green to be her color but she supposes it doesn't really matter since she doesn't plan on wearing it out. Until one day she stumbles out of her cabin half asleep and forgets to change her hoodie. She's already eating breakfast in the dining hall when she finally notices thanks to the rather odd stares she's been getting from her peers. Looking down at herself, she notices that she's wearing the green hoodie rather than her standard white one. "Ah, fuck," she mutters. Changing would require her to go back to her cabin and make her late for training. She's too lazy to walk back and too tired to deal with scolding from Keith Shadis so she ignores the weird looks and continues to eat her bland oatmeal. Besides, everyone's too afraid of her to say anything to her. Except, of course, Eren.

"Annie! Is that the hoodie I gave you? It looks really good on you!" a voice says excitedly. She looks up to see none other than Eren Jaeger. Because duh. "Er, not that your normal one looks bad on you. You look nice in that one too! I just mean to say that you look, um. Nice."

"Thanks," Annie mumbles.

"I was afraid you weren't going to wear it because you hated it," Eren says, smiling sheepishly. "Not that I want you to wear it just to make me feel better or anything! It's just that it's good to get someone something they like, you know?"

"It's a nice sweater," she tells him. Sure, it was a little large on her and the color stuck out more than she liked but it was amazingly soft. "You have good taste."

His face lights up when he realizes she's echoing the very compliment he gave her just a week ago. "Thanks," he says happily and gives her a big grin.

There's something about his smile, she thinks. There's a word for it. It's not just happy or pleased. It's sweet, she realizes.

* * *

 **A/N:** _You can definitely ask for more EreAni if you want! I don't mind at all. I just like to put more than them in this drabble series because I don't want it to be only EreAni~ Also I just like to test myself with writing the other SnK characters :) Thanks again for all of the kind words! I was a little nervous after being gone for a while but you guys always make me feel so welcome!_

 **Prompt:** _Sweet_

 **Word Count:** _2,339_

 **Elivra26:** _Feel free to PM me when you come up with a prompt! You can also message me on Tumblr as well (url: pickalilywrites)._


	14. A Way to Say I Love You - 1

**A/N:** _Modern AU Jeankasa. From the tumblr post 'One Hundred Ways to Say I Love You' which you can check out here:_ _p0ck3tf0x tumblr com/post/98502010026/one-hundred-ways-to-say-i-love-you (with periods between the spaces ofc!) Will eventually do more of these for different pairings._

* * *

She always has the weirdest snacks and he can't help but stare whenever she pulls something out to munch on. You wouldn't think that she's the type to be constantly snacking but she does. He thinks it's pretty cute even though the stuff she eats is kind of strange.

"You're staring again," Mikasa says. It's chocolate mushrooms this time. Sometimes it's white chocolate, other times strawberry, but this one is plain chocolate. She always eats it the same way, biting off the biscuit stem before popping the rest of the mushroom in her mouth. "I can't tell if it's because you just really like the way I eat or if it's because you think my choice in foods is weird."

"Well," he says because it's sort of a mix of both but he doesn't know how well his girlfriend will take to him thinking that her food is weird. At least it's this and not the mini crabs or dried squid this time. "Sasha eats the weirdest shit. I don't know how much of that is actually her being hungry enough to eat anything or if it's really just her 'unique palette,' as she likes to say."

Mikasa ignores him and instead holds out a chocolate mushroom for him to try. "Come on," she says to him. She holds it by the stalk, wagging it slightly in his face. "You might like this. It's just biscuit and chocolate."

"Why'd it have to be a mushroom though?" He's never been a huge fan of foods that were made to look like other foods, like those sweet gummies that looked like burgers. He could tolerate gummy bears but even that was pushing his limits.

"It's cute!" she insists.

"Okay, okay," he says, leaning over and taking the little chocolate sweet into his mouth. His lips brushed her fingers and he smirks when he hears her make a startled noise. He can't help but feel smug as he licks the crumbs off of her fingers, watching her grow more flustered.

"Jean," she stammers. "W-what are you doing?" It's so rare that he can ever get her to blush and seeing her grow a rosy red because of him was pleasant, to say the least.

"You're right," he says, ignoring her question. He leans in to kiss her on the cheek. "I did like that. Can I have another?"

"You're going to eat all of them," she mutters, still red-faced, but she holds out another to him.

He takes it in his mouth and smiles when he watches her shiver as his tongue flickers across her fingertips.

* * *

 **A/N:** _To the anon who apologized for pressuring me - don't be sorry! Just wanted to put in a short explanation as to why I don't write EreAni all of the time lol. It's cool~_

 _Shall get on other requests. Currently writing a Squad Levi one rn but it's taking longer than expected because I just love them so much lol. Also SnK week on Tumblr is coming up and I want to get on that since it sounds fun. I've only ever participated in EreMika week and only submitted one prompt for that and feel like a scrub since I wanted to do at least three or four days rip._

 _Thanks again for all of the kind words and I'll hopefully upload soon!_

 **Prompt:** _"You might like this."_

 **Word Count:** _433_


	15. No Happy Endings

**A/N:** _Much of "That's Not How the Story Goes" (from Netflix's A Series of Unfortunate Events) is surprisingly fitting for SnK. A bit of Rivetra in case you guys were wondering what my favorite SnK ship is. Writing fics under ~1k is a nice change every once in a while_

* * *

 _"I once loved a girl,_

 _and she thought well of me,_

 _we thought we'd be happy together,_

 _but now I'm alone as you can well see,_

 _she's cold in her grave forever."_

 _-That's Not How the Story Goes,_ A Series of Unfortunate Events (Netflix)

* * *

"You always station me away from Titans, have you noticed that?" Petra asks one night when they're in his room as he's reading over documents from Erwin. She's here to give him tea like she normally does (although she disapproves of him drinking it so late at night since "the caffeine will keep you up and you already get so little sleep as it is"), setting down the teapot and two cups, one for him and one for her if she ends up staying to keep him company, onto his desk.

He avoids her gaze, pouring out a cup of tea for him and for her, and takes a sip. It's strong and earthy, although it's a tad too hot since he drank it hastily in order to avoid answering her right away. "Do I?" he finally responds. "Must be a coincidence."

She wrinkles her nose at him and takes her own cup, taking a dainty sip herself. She leans against his desk instead of taking her usual seat on his bed. ("You don't have anywhere else to sit," she pointed out to him one time, leaving him to grudgingly allow her to just sit wherever the hell she wanted unless he give up his own chair for her.) "You don't think I'd be able to handle myself on the field?"

He scoffs at the ridiculousness of the question. "You wouldn't be on my squad if you couldn't."

"Hmm," she says in reply, sipping more of her tea and pretending to be grumpy at his blunt tone. "I always thought Eren was going to be our special weapon – special Titan shifting powers and everything – but maybe it's going to be me since you seem to like to keep me hidden. Are you perhaps saving my skills for something special?"

He isn't, not really, but he does prefer to keep her from the more dangerous areas during expeditions although he's reluctant to admit that it's his affection for her. The way she dances around it, hinting that she probably – no, definitely – knows, makes him feel rather stupid though and he always finds himself stammering and fighting off a blush. "I can't see how you could joke about something like that," he grumbles.

"Captain Levi," she sighs, "always so serious."

"How can I not be when we're getting eaten left and right every time we step outside of the Walls?"

"You could at least allow yourself a smile every once in a while. Maybe it'd look nice on you." She ignores his scowl. "Our situation is grim but allowing yourself to laugh isn't a bad thing. Is it terrible to dream that we might even have a chance at happy ending, Levi?"

He wants to ask what she means by "we." Is it a general "we," a "we" that encompasses all of the lives that lived in the Walls, or did she mean "we" as in him and her?

He never gets the chance to ask for a clarification. It's either because he's too scared or because she leaves far too soon, taking a glance at how much his candle has burnt and declaring that it was much too late for her to be occupying her captain's time, but the affectionate glance that she graces him before she leaves hints that she might have meant the latter "we."

But he'll never know for sure.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Will eventually get to completing prompts, probably after next week though. SnK week is next week and I'd really like to participate._

 _Also a reminder that I don't do veteran x 104th jic any of you guys forgot. I'd feel like that'd end up as crack for me and I'd rather just keep this drabble series for more serious stuff. Sorry for the inconvenience._

 _Have a great day!_

 **Word Count:** _562_


	16. Survive

**A/N:** _Yumikuri is the purest ship in all of Snk. Day one of SnK week!_

* * *

She hates it. She hates this fake persona despite being the one who created it. She had always thought that she would grow into it, that if she pretended to be nice and sweet and caring that she would someday truly be all of these things. Maybe that way she could forget her past. Years later she despises herself for being able to carry this façade for so long. If she were to shed away her perfect shell and become her true self, she wouldn't even know for sure who she'd be. So she continues to smile and rush immediately to the aid of others, to sacrifice her own life for those around her, because that's what a good person would do and Christa is a good person.

"How can you stand to live like that?" Ymir asks one morning as Christa is making the bed sheets. Her own bed is disheveled, the pillow lumpy, and the blankets in disarray.

"What?" Christa says, confused. "This isn't so bad. At least as trainees we're guaranteed food and water. We get to visit town every now and again. The people around here are pleasant. It's not so bad."

"Oh yeah. Just forget that we're training ourselves to die and this place is practically heaven," Ymir snorts. She probably notices Christa opening her mouth to reply but she continues to speak anyway. "That's not what I meant anyway. I meant how you could live with who you are. Offering extra food to that Braus girl even though everyone knows you could probably do with more yourself considering how small you are. Being so sweet and kind during training and coddling everyone with even a minor cut on their finger. Smiling all of the damn time. No one's that nice. You're like a perfect princess, Christa. The only thing missing is your crown and throne."

A crown is the last thing Christa could ever want. She's seen royalty. She's seen her mother, who lusted for that luxurious lifestyle that was almost within her reach but not quite. She remembers almost boarding that carriage with her mother, her father telling them he'd whisk them away to the castle. She was so close, oh so close, and maybe that's something she would have wanted when she was younger but she's seen what it does.

All she has to do is remember her mother, blood dripping down her neck as she tells her own daughter that she wishes she had never given birth to her. She recalls Rod Reiss, the king who would rather keep his crown than be her father, grabbing onto her so fiercely that she can still feel them despite them having faded away years ago. He whispers threats in her ear of death and misery if she doesn't erase her history. Forget everything she ever was, take on a new identity, and be another person for the rest of her life.

So she complies because she wants to live.

But is it really living if she's just a hollow shell inside? Every action she does is not hers but someone else's, the angelic Christa meant to smother the hollow Historia with every day. And yet she finds the anger and hate in Historia bubbling beneath the surface every day, threatening to resurface because this delicate persona will never be able to hold her forever.

That's not something Ymir would understand. It's not something anyone would understand. How could they? So Christa finds her mouth stretching into that smile that has felt fake since the first day she's taken on this name. "I'm surviving," she replies to Ymir. "The same as everyone else."

* * *

 **A/N:** _Just wanted to thank all of you guys again for the reviews and whatnot. Writing for the SnK community has been a pleasure so far!_

 **Adrinette4life:** _Thank you! I'm glad you enjoy my writing so much even if I'm writing about ships you don't necessarily ship in the first place :) Will get to your EreAni request soon! (Probably after SnK week.)_

 **Prompt:** _Survive_

 **Word Count:** _609_


	17. Take Care

**A/N:** _Totally forgot about this EreAni drabble I posted a while back on my tumblr. Might as well post it on here now~_

* * *

"Annie! Annie, wait up!" Eren calls.

Most people would take a hint after someone ignores them but Eren Jaeger isn't like most people. Annie knows that if she doesn't turn around right now, his voice is only going to get louder and louder. She thinks she's pretty obstinate, but that Jaeger kid has got her beat when it comes to stubbornness.

Annie stops walking and turns around. "What?" Her tone is not quite annoyed but it's not a quite friendly either.

He almost bumps into her because he's walking so fast but stops himself just in time. "Hey! I almost caught up to you during this practice!" He's pretty giddy about it. After struggling to master the 3DMG and finally getting good enough to whirl through the air with ease, he's gotten pretty good. Not that she'd tell him that.

"Hm," she says. She admits that she's pretty impressed, especially since she, like most of the people in their trainee squad, had believed that the 3DMG course would be the downfall of Eren Jaeger. "You're not quite there yet though."

Still, he grins and tucks his thumbs under his belt. "Maybe not, but I'm getting there!" He lowers his voice. "I want to be better than Horse-Face eventually. I hate that bastard but he's pretty damn good with 3DMG." They start walking again, catching up with the rest of the trainees heading back to their cabins.

Annie snorts. "Good luck with that." She may sound dismissive right now, but she doesn't entirely doubt the notion of Eren surpassing Jean. The kid has an amazingly stupid amount of determination.

"Thanks!" Eren says, completely ignoring her tone. He's done that enough times that she's wondered if he just didn't mind or was too dense to notice. They walk for a moment in silence before Eren – of course it's Eren because the guy couldn't shut his mouth for even a minute – leans towards her and asks, "Annie, what's this?" and points to the left side of his cheek.

"What?" Her hand flies to her cheek.

"Take your hand off," he says. She does so and he frowns after taking a closer look. "It's a cut - not too deep - but you should get that taken care of when we get back."

"A cut," she repeats, frowning. She usually got through training without so much as a scratch. She's getting careless. "I must have been brushed too close to a branch during practice," she mutters.

"It happens all of the time," Eren says, waving a hand around to indicate that it isn't a big deal. "Hey, but make sure you wash it when we get back, alright? Warm water might be better but cold water feels nicer against your skin. It looks like you only bled a little bit so that's good. I wouldn't worry about it too much, but get it cleaned right away so it doesn't get infected."

It's strange hearing these words, partly because she's had to patch up her own cuts and scrapes since she was a child but also because she can't remember the last time anyone cared to actually offer such simple advice.

Her confusion must show on her face because Eren gives her a sheepish smile and rubs the back of his neck in embarrassment. "I got into a lot of fights as a kid," he explains hurriedly. "My mom had to, ah, patch me up a lot because I was kind of shit at throwing punches." His voice catches in his throat when he talks to his mother and he looks away from Annie for a second.

A voice calls his name from the distance and Eren scowls, muttering about how Mikasa always needs to have him in sight 24/7.

Eren rolls his eyes and sighs. "I should probably go before Mikasa freaks out," he says to Annie. He's already jogging a little bit ahead. "Take care of yourself, okay, Annie?" He points to his cheek again before giving her a final wave and then running off to where Mikasa and Armin are up ahead.

"Right," she says even though he's too far away to hear her response.

The first thing she does when she gets back is wash her cut. It stings a little because it's not fully closed up but the cold water makes it a less painful, she thinks. Annie is about to just leave the cut as it is and allow it to close up on its own but remembers Eren running ahead of her, saying "Take care!" and she finds herself carefully applying a small bandage on the side of her face anyway.

She wonders the last time someone cared about her like that. Her father, maybe, but he trained her until her body ached the next day and only told her the wounds she suffered would make her stronger, telling her to bandage herself up on her own. He probably cared about her as much as Keith Shadis did, if not less. Not that she particularly cared about her uncaring father. She could take care of herself.

But, she thinks as she traces the bandage on her cheek with her thumb, having someone care about you isn't unpleasant.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Expect another update soon :) (I hope you guys don't think I'm uploading some of these too fast. Some were already written before and I just forgot to upload them here.)_


	18. Let Go

**A/N:** _AoT Week Day 2. Favorite main/minor character. Levi/Petra. Rivetra._

 **Prompt:** _Devotion_

 **Word Count:** _1,325_

* * *

 _Devote yourself. Offer your hearts to humanity._

Her eyes snap open but she can't quite recall where she is. Should she be able to remember? A blank, white expanse extends before her and she's alone. No, she's not. There are people behind her. She knows who they are but their names elude her. Her own name eludes her. What is it again?

 _Petra. Your name is Petra._

That's it. But why is she here? She was somewhere else before, somewhere very different. It was darker there. Large trees stretched towards the heavens and she was running away from something. Was she running away or towards it?

It was a Titan, one of those foul beasts that had eaten so many of her comrades, but this one was different. It was so coordinated. It was intelligent. It was killing everyone.

 _Gunter. Eld. Auruo._

Those are the men standing behind her. They seem to be saying something to her, calling her name, but she can't quite hear what they're saying. They were dead though, so why were they here? Was this the afterlife?

She must be dead too then. The last thing she remembers is black and red. Pain runs through her body as she's smashed against a tree by the foot of a Titan. The memory of it hits her like a lightning bolt and she groans in pain. The men behind her run toward her but it's like they can't reach her. It's as if an invisible barrier separates them.

 _Help me._

Her mouth moves to form the words. Her lungs hurt from screaming them but the words never leave her throat. She can only hunch over, curling into a ball as if making herself smaller will protect her somehow.

Wasn't she supposed to be protecting someone? The image of a young boy flashes through her mind. His eyes, usually wide-eyed and bright, were frightened. He's shouting something, his hand held up tentatively towards his mouth as if he's ready to bite himself.

 _Eren._

Where is he now? He's not here so she doesn't assume the worst. But he's alone. He's alone and it's all her fault. He's too young to be alone. His mother is gone. His father has been missing ever since the Fall of Maria. He only has his friends in the Scouting Legion but they were assigned to other squads. The only people he was depending on had failed him. She had failed him.

 _Trust us._

Those were the words she said to him. They were the wrong words.

At the very least they had bought him time, but would it be enough? Would it have been better to have just let him transform in the first place? Had their decision been right?

 _Don't regret it, the choice you made._

She remembers someone said that to her before. It was so long ago. She had swooped in recklessly, aiming to kill a Titan that had just devoured a comrade, and was completely unaware of an abnormal coming her way.

Another Legion member pushed her out of the way and the abnormal consumed him instead. All she could do was lay there frozen in shock as he screamed and pleaded for help. She couldn't make it there in time. No one can. She watched him die a gruesome death and she cried the whole time.

She would have let the Titan eat her too if someone hadn't slain both the Titan she had initially targeted and the abnormal. He carried her out, setting her on the roof of house that was not yet demolished.

"They're dead because of me," she said shakily to the soldier. Her whole body was quivering. "If I hadn't been so reckless, if I hadn't been so quick to avenge my friend's death, maybe that other soldier would still be alive."

The man first glanced at her. He didn't say anything at first but then he spoke. "Don't regret it, the choice you made," he said. His eyes were stormy and distant. Even as he spoke, it was as if he was remembering something from a long time ago. "He must have thought your life was worth sacrificing his for. Prove him right."

 _Captain Levi._

She remembers dedicating her heart to humanity. The Legion. Her captain.

So how could she die when her work was unfinished? How could she abandon them as they faced a new horror? How could she?

Her old comrades call her name behind her. Their hands are beginning to reach her. They brush her arms and she pulls them away. "Come with us," they say. "Petra, you have to let go."

She can't go, not now. Her captain still needs her. How can they leave him so easily? Did they not dedicate themselves like they did?

"Don't touch me," she croaks, wriggling out of their grasp. She stumbles forward. She doesn't know where she is but she needs to go back. She needs to get back to him. "He's all alone. He needs me right now! How could you keep me from him when he's by himself?"

They keep trying to drag her back as she claws herself away. She kicks, she screams, she cries. Let her go, let her go, she needs to go. He doesn't have anyone else. Who will be there for him if she isn't there? Let her go, let her go, please, let her go.

 _Petra._

The voice sounds so familiar and she looks up. He looks just like him, her captain. The same sad expression, the same dark hair, the same gloomy eyes. It's him. It has to be him.

The men behind her stand up straight, their fists clenched to their heart. "Captain!" they say, chins held high.

Their captain gives them a nod and says each of their names in turn. "Gunter. Eld. Auruo." He turns to Petra, who is still on the ground staring up at him with tears staining her cheeks. "Petra."

She stands up shakily. Her fist is raised to her chest. "Captain!" she says, choking back sobs.

"You have all served me well," he says. "I could not have picked a better team. Your duty to the Legion and your captain ends now. Thank you for your service."

The others around her bow, but she's not ready to say goodbye. How could they leave him so easily? They – Gunter, Eld, and Auruo – turn from their captain, ready to leave.

 _No!_

She's hardly ever raised her voice that high. It sounds strange coming out of her mouth now. Her shout is startling enough to have everyone turn to stare at her, waiting for her to speak.

"You need me," she stammers to her captain. She can't stand the sad look he's giving her. "Please, take me with you. You're all alone. We left you all alone. What are you going to do without us? Without me?"

He approaches her and she's too scared to look at his face. Is he angry with her for speaking out? A hand is placed gently on her head and she looks up. His face is so gentle.

She reaches up to touch his face, cupping the side of it with her hand. "I left you alone," she whispers. Tears are running down her face again, but she can't seem to stop herself from crying. "I'm sorry. Levi, I'm so sorry."

 _It's okay._

He tells her it's okay and she doubts him at first. He removes the hand from her head and he covers the hand she still has on his cheek. "Thank you," he says.

She closes her eyes as he slips away from her. When she opens them, he's gone. It's like he was never there at all.

 _Petra. Let's go._

She wipes the tears from her eyes and turns to her comrades. Eld reaches his hand out to her and she takes it.

She's devoted her life to humanity. It's time for her to move on.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Roughly inspired by the series Haibane Renmei. I may eventually rewrite this into a longer series (ft. all your favorite dead SnK characters!) but this one shot seemed really nice in my head._

 _Catch you guys later~_


	19. Moments

**A/N:** _AoT Week - Day 3._ _Yumikuri. Battle at Castle Utgard._

 **Prompt:** _Moments_

 **Word Count:** _809_

* * *

Is there a point to living? What good is it if she must suffer day after day? Was this punishment for living as a goddess for so long? Maybe a younger, more naïve person would have traded this pain and humiliation for a moment of worship and glory. She's already been there. It's not worth it.

She'd rather have this freedom. Oh, being a soldier might not really be freedom. Picking up a blade to protect others, putting them before your own life, what kind of freedom is that? But she prefers it to be being chained up, sneered at, made into a devil. The food is shit, the people are idiots at times, but she's not demonized for being someone she's not and she'll take this over playing goddess any day. And yet something has brought her back to the very past she was running away from.

What choice did she have, really? She could stand there at the top of the tower while the rest of her companions panicked as the Titans clamber up the castle tower to eat them. She could transform and escape by herself. Or she could transform and save them all. Perhaps she would have just saved her own ass but looking at Christa beside her, she couldn't fathom doing that now.

So she snatches Connie's dagger, slashes her own hand, and jumps down before anyone can comprehend what's going on. She hears Christa, oh precious Christa, calling her name as she falls and she can't help but smile a little bit before she fully transforms into the monster everyone had hated her for being so long ago.

Fighting with blades as you zoomed around with 3DMG is far different than fighting as a Titan. The former is thrilling in a way, but the latter is exhilarating. She's never realized it until now. Even for her small form, almost miniscule compared to the average size of other Titans, she's agile and powerful enough to tear apart other Titans, felling them down one by one faster than she can count.

She has to be cautious though. She glances at the tower, already teetering precariously from all of the previous damage. It'd be so much easier to just tear it down but there are people there.

As she's thinking this when a Titan knocks into her and she groans from the pain. She can't let down her guard. She gets up again, but it's tougher this time. Her movements aren't as quick or her attacks as strong. Her movements are restrained. She doesn't want one wrong move to send the castle crashing down while simultaneously sending her friends to their deaths.

But a voice calls her name. It's shouting something. "Tear down the castle!" It's Christa, she realizes. She turns to see the girl stomping at the very edge, in danger of falling, but Christa couldn't give less of a shit. She just wants Ymir to hear her. "Just tear it down!"

She'll do her one better.

The group seems to be surprised when Ymir clambers up the tower. They're startled by her words, probably surprised that Titans could talk, so she has to repeat them again.

"If you don't want to die, grab on!"

Christa doesn't hesitate. Before Connie, Reiner, and Bertholdt have a good grip on her, she's off. Down the tower goes and she uses the stones it's made out of as projectiles. They're more effective than she's anticipated. She's sure her mouth is stretched in a terrifying grin.

But her speed and small size, even her new weapons, aren't a big enough advantage. They have her beat in number. They're grabbing her arms and legs, dragging her down and tearing her apart. The pain of having herself being eaten alive is nothing compared to the one in her heart, searing because she can't prevent the death of the one she holds most dear.

There are shouts. One's from Connie and he seems to be looking at something further ahead. A mountain of Titans pile onto her and she can only see black and red.

What is the point of living if your sacrifice ends in your death and the death of those you were trying to protect?

* * *

 _Am I dead?_ she thinks as she opens her eyes.

A hand touches her face, cradling her gently. "Ymir." Oh, this is better than death, she thinks as she gazes up at the face of the one she loves most. Christa. "My name is Historia."

Historia. It's even better than the name she had known her by before. It's perfect.

She understands now, why people live. It's for moments like this.

She's never felt more at peace than she has now, her limbs gone and painfully regenerating. The girl she cares for the most watches her with eyes so gentle. They're filled with love.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Yumikuri is so nice. I feel like it's the one SnK ship that fans of the series can agree on along with Springles._

 **Adrinette4life:** _Thank you again for the kind reviews! They always manage to make me smile :)_


	20. Revenge

**A/N:** _AoT Week - Day 4. Revenge. Springles. Post-SnK cooking OVA. Some fun to make up for the past angst-y one-shots that have been making up the past few chapters._

 **Word Count:** _797_

* * *

Armin normally doesn't bother with the affairs of others but Sasha and Connie's pranks are always so simultaneously clever and stupid that he can't help but wonder why the two look so smug right now. They're also shockingly quiet right now, which could only mean that the plot they're currently carrying out is particularly nefarious…

"We didn't give Jean his bagel this morning," Connie says proudly when Armin strolls by to ask them what they're up to.

He isn't sure he's heard correctly. "Excuse me?"

"It's really simple," Sasha says, waving a half-eaten bagel around in one hand. (Armin can only assume that this is the aforementioned bagel that Jean hadn't received.) "You know that cooking showdown Jean and I had a while ago?"

"When you guys both cooked for Pixis? I thought you buried the hatchet for that."

"Nah, we just let Jean think that so he'd let his guard down," Connie says, talking for Sasha as she bit off a chunk of bagel. "We've been giving him our breakfast bagels for the past two weeks so he'd think we were friends."

"And now we're taking them away! No explanation at all," Sasha finishes. Her mouth is still full of bagel and Armin cringes when a few crumbs fly into his face.

He waits a bit but it seems that they're done explaining. "Is that…is that supposed to be your way of getting revenge?" Armin asks. "How is he even going to notice that?"

Sasha and Connie share a knowing glance.

"Oh, Armin," Connie says, giving Armin a patronizing pat on the head.

"You're a smart cookie, Arlert," Sasha says, "but you've still got a few things to learn. Keep this in mind whenever we're playing a prank – we know what we're doing."

"Er, alright." He's still doubtful about their revenge plot. It seems petty instead of humorous or sly but it's harmless so he doesn't do anything about it. He's sure nothing will come out of it and that Sasha and Connie would wind up disappointed by the end of the day but he turns out to be wrong.

The next day he passes by a contemplative and quiet Jean Kirstein the next day. Everyone has already gone to the dining hall but Jean lingers behind at the cabin the boys sleep in, sitting on the front steps. Having completely forgotten about Sasha and Connie's scheme from yesterday, Armin asks Jean if there is anything wrong and receives a completely different response from what he receives.

"Do you think Sasha and Connie hate me?" Jean asks.

"What? Why would you say that?" While it's not secret that Jean could be a bit of a pompous ass (especially if he's interacting with a certain Eren Jaeger), Armin's sure that Sasha and Connie don't harbor ill feelings towards Jean. In fact, he's pretty sure that Sasha and Connie don't hate anyone. They're way too good-natured for that.

"This is gonna sound stupid," Jean mumbles. He ruffles his hand through his hair, clearly embarrassed about what he's going to share with his friend. "Sasha and Connie have offered me their bagel at breakfast for the past, what, two weeks, and they just suddenly…stopped. They haven't done anything else. They still talk to me and everything but no bagel. It's just…weird…"

It's as Jean is explaining that Armin remembers the conversation he had with the two only yesterday. Part of him is impressed that their plan is actually working. The other part of him is in awe that Jean is actually affected by something like this. His conscience tells him that he should tell Jean what's going on and expose Sasha and Connie's mischief for what it is. Then again, it would be a crime to foil such a simple yet effective plot.

He ends up patting Jean on the back. "Well, it started with food, right? Maybe you can fix it with food." A little idea is popping up in his mind right now. He knows Sasha and Connie will thank him later. "Maybe you should give them some of your food at dinner. It'll soften them up and you guys can make amends."

Jean looks suspiciously at Armin first but, hey, it's Armin. He's harmless and also smart as hell. It would be stupid not to take free advice from him. He stands up, brushing off the dirt from his clothes. "Alright, that sounds like a good idea," Jean says. "Thanks, Armin!"

Armin waves goodbye and watches as Jean heads off to the dining hall. If they're having meatloaf today, Sasha is going to be thrilled.

He makes his own way to the dining hall, still marveling at Sasha and Connie's handiwork. It seems that they're right. He does have a few things to learn after all.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Will hopefully update tomorrow since I have an idea for tomorrow's AoT week prompt (Allies) but I might be overly ambitious with it lol. I'll either have to cut down to the most important parts or else just write it another day~_

 **Adrinette4life:** _Thank you for the feedback on my Yumikuri chapter! I don't write as much as them as I'd like so it's nice to hear that I've been able to keep their interactions/thoughts/feelings in line with the canon :)_


	21. Oh My Friends

**A/N:** _AoT Week - Day 5. Allies. Erwin Smith._

 **Word Count:** _222_

* * *

They call the dead the dearly departed. Dear, they are, but departed they are not. They watch his every move and action, whispering about the sacrifices they've made and asking him if their deaths have any meaning. Comrades, allies, friends, all people he's sent to their doom. He's reluctant to say whether or not their devotion has left any lasting impact. At times it feels as if they've gained nothing except more loss.

They've made advances. Of course, they have. But at times he's been forced to question his true intentions. He commands the Legion to lead humanity to victory, but how much of that is really his desire to find the truth behind the Walls and the Titans? How many soldiers is he willing to sacrifice for that purpose?

He's thought about stepping down from his position. He can only hand out death sentences for so long. And yet he can't stop now when he's so close to his goal.

No, he won't give up. If he gives up now then their sacrifices will mean nothing. So he makes it up to them in a different way. He lets them weigh him down – his heart, his mind, his body. He remembers them – standing tall before them as they pledge their hearts to humanity. And he lets them haunt him.

His friends.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Experimenting with fic lengths while I can. This isn't the ambitious one I was talking about (if you couldn't tell lol). Shall have to save that one for another day~_

 _Was listening to Oh Wonder's "My Friends" a while ago and thought it'd be nice inspiration for an SnK fic and here you have it! Oh Wonder's such a pleasant band. Their new stuff sounds really different but in this really cool way! Y'all should have a listen :)_

 _I can't really believe that I've written for 5 of the 7 days already, haha. I'm usually really bad at this stuff. (I've also been distracted since my friend bought me Portal and Portal 2 the other week and they're pretty fun even though I'm kind of bad at it lol.)_


	22. Grow

**A/N:** _Eren and Historia have one of the most interesting relationships in SnK. (Tbh SnK is full of unique relationships - romantic, familial, platonic, etc. - and it's amazing. Hopefully I'll be able to explore all of them someday.) I really enjoyed their dialogue during the whole bait-and-switch scheme that Squad Levi 2.0 was carrying out. Very, very nice_

 _Aot Week - Day 6. Historia Reiss. Growth._

 **Word Count:** _266_

* * *

She hates who she was but she hates who she is even more. She's a blank slate, nothing to live for but nothing to die for either.

"I like this you better," Eren tells her. "It's more real."

That's ridiculous. Real how? Even Christa was more of a person than Historia is. Historia so much less of a person that she might as well be a nobody.

"That's how everybody starts. We're all nobodies and then we find things we want to live for, things we want to die for. That's how we become people."

Was Christa not a person?

He shifts, uncomfortable. "She was more like a shadow of a person. She was one-dimensional. People in real life are more complicated than that. She was perfect, unchanging, but people change. Real people grow. That's something Christa could never do."

If she couldn't even get being a fake person right, why would being a "real" person like Historia mean she'd fare any better?

"Because you'll change," Eren says, "and you'll grow. And you'll be someone you like."

How?

"You'll figure it out."

So she grows.

She grows from an abandoned girl who only wanted love to a woman who could recognize that was love she could never receive and never would. She grows from someone who wanted love from everyone to a person who only cared and loved people who mattered. She grows from a self-sacrificial martyr to a stubborn soldier who will do anything to live because she has a future to live for.

"Do you like the person you've become?" he asks when it's all over.

Yes. Yes, she does.

* * *

 **A/N:** _That awkward moment when you almost don't post because you're too busy playing the farming game your boyfriend bought you :| (It's very calming!) Anyway, hopefully I'll hold out for tomorrow~ Then it'll probably be back to my at-least-once-a-week schedule lol._

 **Adrinette4life:** _Erwin's relationship with the his soldiers says a lot about his character, especially the ones that aren't necessarily ranked as highly as Hanji and Levi. At one point he calls Jean by name in s2 (I believe it's when Jean is yelling at the military police and Erwin tells him to calm down lol). Maybe him remembering soldiers by name is sort of his way of saying "the very least I can do is remember them" since he has to send them out to their deaths all of the time :(_


	23. Day Off

**A/N:** _For the anon that requested a Squad Levi fic :) I went with original Squad Levi since I love them so much, especially Petra. Hopefully I'll get to writing a Squad Levi 2.0 drabble as well. I feel like they could get into some serious shenanigans lol._

* * *

Every other week the members of his squad were allowed to visit the town and visit their families, see girls, whatever the hell they wanted to do to relax. He came with them but often returned early to scrub down the castle. It wasn't like he had much to do in town besides buy tea anyway. The first few times his squad had asked him why he didn't stick around, he shrugged them off, saying that he didn't have a very big interest in mixing with townsfolk. Petra and Eld tried to convince him to visit their families, telling him that they'd be ecstatic to meet the famous Captain Levi, but he only scoffed and said it would be best if they didn't meet him since people found his personality to be off-putting. In time they learned to just accept the fact that their captain was an antisocial bastard and didn't say anything about his short town visits, only greeting him as usual when they returned and occasionally showing off food they received from their families.

He expected this particular visit to be the same. Land in town, head to the tea store he normally frequented, buy another box of tea, and then leave. He wasn't expecting the members of his squad to linger by his side, following him at a rather awkward distance to let him know that they were joining him but far away enough for it to look like they were hesitant children who didn't know if they were supposed to follow their mother or not.

"What do you shitheads think you're doing?" he asked, stopping in his tracks and turning around to look at his sheepish subordinates.

"It was all Petra's idea!" Auruo blurted before anyone could say anything else. He pointed accusingly at the ginger and she squeaked, clearly embarrassed to be singled out. "I told her not to bother you but she insisted that we spend our day off with you!"

Levi raised an eyebrow, waiting for Petra to explain.

She looked helplessly at her comrades but they all shrugged at her and made no attempt to come to her rescue. "You guys suck," she muttered under her breath. She sighed and rubbed her arm nervously, not quite raising her eyes to meet Levi's. "Well, you're always by yourself all of the time and we're a team so I just thought…it would be nice if we all spent time together. There are some really fun things to do in town that we can't do back in the castle."

He could either tell them to get lost (which would be mean but probably something his squad would expect from him so it wouldn't be too much of a dick move) or just let them drag him around town. The first option was tempting. Telling people to fuck off was easy for him but he knew that doing so would mean Petra and Auruo would be sulking around the castle for at least three or four days and he really couldn't work with moody people. He was moody enough for five people and more gloom would make him feel twice as shitty. "Alright," he finally said. "Let me just buy this and we can get going to wherever the hell you guys want to show me."

The giddy reaction from them was a lot more than he expected. He was half sure that they were only teasing him. Petra and Auruo shared a rare high five while Gunter thanked him for allowing them to accompany him and Eld slapped him a little too roughly on the back.

He grumbled on the way to general store while the rest of the squad gossiped behind him, snickering about the military police patrolling the area. Eld proposed a prank to play on them but Petra shushed him midway, gesturing at their captain. Levi honestly couldn't care less if they ended up pissing off the military police. That branch of the military largely consisted of assholes and if their plans for today consisted of fucking with them, maybe he'd actually be looking forward to spending the day with his squad. His team would probably be way too cautious to pull a prank on their first outing with their captain but, hey, it could happen.

Despite their claims about wanting to spend time with him, everyone kept their distance from him. Petra and Eld lurked in aisles behind him trying to come up with puns for all of the products lined up in the store, guffawing when one of them produced a particularly clever one. Auruo grumbled to himself in the corner trying to look cool but only managed to make himself seem like an angst-ridden loner. And Gunter was…well, he was looking closely at the types of tea alongside him.

Gunter was a good team player but Levi had truthfully never interacted with him much. Well, he hadn't interacted with anyone on his team very much despite handpicking them. It wasn't that he disliked them, he just wasn't the kind of person to approach others and seek friendship. His personality was also rather uninviting so he wasn't surprised that his subordinates never sought him out. They were civil, which was actually far better than what most people are like to him after meeting him for the first time. And Gunter was as polite as they got. Eld cracked jokes at least and Petra always offered to make him tea in the morning. Auruo even sometimes talked to him, usually trying to make sarcastic remarks about the hypocritical military police living in Wall Sina only to fumble across his words and bite his tongue. Gunter, though, always kept his distance from the captain, so Levi was surprised when the man opened his mouth and asked, "We're running out to black tea, right?"

"Yeah," Levi answered. He watched Gunter study the boxes, peering inside and sniffing the leaves, before snatching the one out of his hand and replacing it with another one. "Get this one. The other brands taste like shit."

"Oh!" Gunter looked around nervously, checking to see if the storeowner had heard Levi's crude language. "I do trust your judgment when it comes to tea, Captain. Is there anything else I can get for you before I head to the register?"

"You don't have to buy it. I can pay for it myself," Levi said hastily but Gunter shook his head.

"Don't worry about it," Gunter said, already hurrying off to where Petra and Eld were. "Do you guys want anything? I'll pay."

"Ooh, buy a pack of cigarettes for Auruo," Petra snickered.

"Shut up, Petra!" Auruo snapped from the corner of the store, walking over to avoid a scolding from the storeowner and to talk to Petra himself. "I haven't smoked since our days in training."

"It's why he looks like he's ten years older than me even though we're the same age," she whispered to Levi.

"What are you telling the captain? Don't gossip about me when I'm standing right in front of you!" He lunged for her and she squealed, hiding behind Eld.

Gunter sighed, heading towards the register to pay for the tea since his teammates didn't seem like they needed anything else and were busy goofing off anyway.

It was strange seeing his squad so relaxed. He's seen them joke around with each other during training, but it seemed like they were really at ease in the settling of this bustling town. Perhaps being surrounded by normal everyday civilians helped them to forget the death that awaited them outside of the Walls. It was a little refreshing to see them like this although he wasn't all too sure that he belonged there with them.

Eld's hand clapped him on the shoulder, a grin on his face. "Where to next, Captain?"

Levi shrugged. "Wherever you guys want to go. I'm only here because you insisted to spend time with me," he pointed out. "If I had it my way, I'd already be heading back to the castle alone."

"You could try to sound a little like you don't hate the idea of spending the day with us," Petra sighed, but her tone isn't annoyed or angry. It's somewhat teasing and he can see that she's smiling. "Maybe we could hit a restaurant or something if you're feeling a little hungry. Auruo knows some really good places."

Levi raised an eyebrow. "I thought you said he smoked. Shouldn't his taste buds be dead by now or something?"

Auruo puffed out his chest proudly. "The grow back twice as good after you quit. That's what they don't tell you!"

"You wouldn't believe it after Auruo's cooking," Eld said while Petra bit back a laugh. "The way you try to pass off your dishes as good really says otherwise."

The sandy-haired man was about to snap back at his comrade but Gunter came, tea in his hand, and gave Eld a look. "Stop teasing Auruo, Eld" he told him. Auruo smiled and was about to thank him before Gunter added, "You know he can't handle it when people make fun of him."

Auruo scowled.

Petra hooked her arm through Gunter's as they left the general store. Levi was starting to notice that she could be rather touchy with those she was friendly with. It wasn't in a creepy way. She just tended to stick close to people if they were good enough friends with her. Her friendliness was probably why she was the one who approached him the most although he wasn't quite sure if he'd consider her more than an ally on the battlefield. "We were thinking about going someplace to eat. It's a little bit early for lunch but maybe we could snag some brunch if Auruo quits sulking."

The sullen man stuck out his tongue at them like a child. "I'm going to take you to the worst café to eat since you guys are such assholes."

Petra and Eld began to raise their voices in protest, complaining about how stupid a move that would be since he'd have to be eating with them too, but Levi interrupted. "Do that and I'll make you clean the shitter for a week."

He waited for the awkward silence to settle in since every time he told a shit joke people would just stand there not knowing what to do, so he was surprised when Petra began laughing and Eld said, "Best threat you've dished out this week, Captain." Stupid as it was, he felt the tiniest bit proud that he wasn't as socially inept as Hanji often claimed he was. Stupid goggles.

Auruo sniffed, muttering about how he was under appreciated, but nonetheless began to lead them to an eatery that he claimed would "knock your goddamn smelly socks right off." Somehow Petra and Eld managed to tease him about this too and, as expected of Auruo, Auruo scowled. He couldn't imagine how they managed to become friends with all of the training they did. He supposed good-natured joking was better than constant bickering though.

"Eld! Eld!" A gaggle of children with a beat up ball ran up to them, surrounding the tallest member of the squad excitedly. They must have been around nine or ten years old, scrawny little things but energetic. "You're late today! Come play with us!"

Eld ruffled a boy's hair and smiled. "Sorry, kiddos. I'm out with the Captain right now. I'll play with you guys next time I'm in town."

A few kids whined but others perked up after hearing that Levi was in their midst. "Captain Levi's here? Which one is he?" They looked curiously at Eld's friend. Some glanced over him, convinced that someone so short could ever be a captain.

"Hey," Petra whispered to one of them, tilting her head over at Levi.

"He's so short though!" one of them said in surprise. "How'd he get to be captain if he's so short?"

Eld, typical Eld, was snickering while Gunter and Auruo looked shocked, scandalized that a child could speak that way to a highly esteemed member of the military. He was about to open his mouth and say something rude when Petra bent down to pinch the young rascal's cheeks. "Who are you calling short, squirt?" she said while the child tried to swat away her hands. "Besides, he has the highest kill count in the Legion. That's way more important than how tall you are!"

The child managed to wriggle his way out of Petra's grasp and rubbed his cheeks, now pink from Petra's pinching. He gave Levi a suspicious look. "You can't really be that strong," he said.

"Play a game with him and see," Petra said.

"Petra," he growled. Had he known that hanging out with children was on the list of things to do today, he would have ran back to the castle as fast as he could earlier that morning.

She only gave him a mischievous grin as the kids began to flock around him saying, "Play with us! Play with us!"

"Now you've got them all riled up," Eld laughed. He grabbed the ball from a girl and spun it on his finger. "The only way to stop them is to play, Captain. Come on. One game won't kill you."

"Alright," he sighed. He thought that saying yes would make them shut up but the kids only cheered loudly, making him wince. "How do you play?"

A bunch of them began to babble all at once, their voices overlapping one another and making it so that Levi couldn't make out any of the words they were saying. Eld managed to quiet them down enough to explain. "There's a court – it's shaped like a circle with a line to split it in half – and teams kick it back and forth. You can pass it to teammate using any part of your body but you can't catch it or let it touch the ground or you lose."

That seemed simple enough and he figured he could either just lose straightaway or easily kick the ball. "Okay," Levi said. "Where's the court?"

Excited once again, the kids lead him and the rest of his squad a little ways away to a lopsided circle drawn in chalk in the middle of a plaza. Shoppers and other townspeople were walking through it, ruining the shape even more, but as soon as the children came screaming and gathering onto the court the townspeople sighed and made sure to steer clear of it. They were probably used to the children's daily ball game by now.

"So how's about all of us against Captain Levi?" Eld suggested.

"What! No way!" a young girl cried. "He's never going to win by himself!"

He was slightly touched that a child was thinking about him but also a little miffed that she didn't think he could win without anyone else's help. "It's fine," he said. He just wanted it over with.

"See? He's okay with it so we're good to go!" Eld said cheerfully, patting the girl on her head. "I'll play with you guys so we're more evenly matched in skill. Of course, you could always have anyone else from the team join you if you don't think you can handle it yourself." He flexed his muscles and all of the children oohed, glancing at Levi to see if he would react in any way. He didn't.

Levi looked back to see if Gunter, Auruo, or Petra would want to join him but Gunter shook his head, lifting up the small box of tea he was holding to indicate that he couldn't play. Auruo scoffed, calling it a child's game and that he was much too old to partake in such an activity. When he finally looked to Petra, she smiled.

"I'll be cheering you on from the sidelines, Captain," she said cheerfully while he scowled at her. "Go! Fight! Win!" She pumped her fist in the air and he rolled his eyes. Figures that she wouldn't play even after getting him into this mess in the first place.

"Let's get this over with," he sighed, moving to one side of the court. "Make it snappy, Jinn. You're buying lunch after this when you lose."

"If I lose," Eld corrected, "which I won't." He handed the ball to the young girl who had it earlier and told her to toss it up for him. After she gave it a good throw, he kicked it up over to the other side, making Levi run over to it.

Levi cursed. Anything that caused him to physically exert himself when he wasn't fighting or cleaning was a pain in the ass. Still, he didn't want to lose in front of a bunch of kids and ran over to the ball and managed to send it back.

A few of the kids participated, managing to hit back balls despite Levi's powerful kicks (like he'd ever hit that filthy thing with his hands), but it soon became clear that this game would be one between Jinn and his captain. The children soon resided to the sidelines where Gunter, Auruo, and Petra were and cheered, gasping whenever it seemed like the ball would hit the ground.

"Hey, you're pretty good even though you're playing this for the first time!" Eld panted, almost missing the ball.

"Tch." Levi was truthfully a little out of breath himself but he didn't want Eld to pick up on it. He ran over to kick the ball back but miscalculated and hit it way too hard at the wrong angle, sending it soaring past the confines of the court. "Shit."

"He missed it! He missed it!" the children cried gleefully. Their smiles soon turned into looks of horror once they saw where the ball was headed.

It arched into the sky and descended towards an innocent bystander. Some innocent people strolling by were able to avoid it, hurriedly walking away to avoid the ball. Others even screamed, alerting people to stay away, but there were a few standing and staring at the ball hurtling towards them. It was as if the earth was standing still as the ball made its way closer and closer to its victim, a frozen military policeman before hitting him straight in the face with a loud _bonk_!

The soldier stood there, stunned, before slowly turning his gaze to the culprit. Levi had half a mind to just stand there and smirk but a hand grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him away.

"We've got to run," Petra said, dragging a surprised Levi behind her. She looked back at the wounded military policeman gleefully and bit back a laugh. "Nile said that if he got another report about us messing with one of his men again he'd have Erwin dock our pay."

"We'll see you guys next time," Eld said hurriedly, running after Petra and Levi. He gave them a distracted wave before picking up the pace.

"Run, run!" the children cheered, scattering themselves before they got a scolding. A few clapped and waved their arms as the members of the Legion ran by and Levi was surprised to hear one kid even say, "Come back and play next time, Captain Levi! It was really fun!"

"I told you guys not to bother them," Gunter muttered, following a little ways behind them.

"It's not our fault that nobody in the military police can take a joke," Eld snickered.

"Aw, who cares?" Auruo said. He was running ahead of them, leading them to who knows where. "We can't make it to the restaurant I wanted to take the Captain to because of you guys. It'd be way too easy to find us there."

"Take us to another place then," Petra said, hardly bothered that their plans had to be changed. "We could always take the Captain next time."

"Next time?" Levi said warily. This trip alone was already exhausting. He couldn't imagine doing this again with them even after a few weeks.

After running for a while and losing the angry policeman in a crowd, Petra had let go of Levi's wrist. "You could have left anytime you wanted to. We're not holding you hostage." She looked over to where Auruo is. "Did you pick somewhere to go yet? I'm starving!"

"There's a place nearby that's pretty good so you can quit nagging me to get there faster," Auruo scowled. A funny expression appeared on his face and he gave Petra a smug look. "It's like you're my wife or something."

Petra's smile vanished and was replaced by a deadly glare. "Disgusting."

"So they're like that on casual outings too," Levi mused as he watched the two bicker back and forth. He had always assumed their behavior was similar to what they were like in training but it was another thing to see it happen in real life.

"Yeah, apparently they've been like that since their trainee days," Eld said affectionately.

"I could shut them up for you if you want," Gunter said.

"It's fine." He wasn't much of a conversationalist and while he didn't care very much for noise, it was nice hearing Auruo and Petra's arguments fill up the silence with the occasional interruption by Gunter and Eld.

The restaurant Auruo led them to was a quaint family-owned store that smelled heavily of bread. ("They have a lot of bread-based dishes," Auruo explained. "They make the bread themselves. Get up super early in the morning just to make enough to satisfy all of the customers they get every day.") It was a tad crowded and waiting to get seats and have their order taken was kind of a pain in the ass. It probably would have been more so if he had to wait the entire time but Petra had convinced the restaurant owners to lend Levi and Eld their washroom in the back to clean up since they were pretty filthy playing with the children. By the time Levi and Eld had returned, the rest of the squad had already taken their seats and ordered for them.

"Eat, eat!" Petra said when she saw them, gesturing at the food. "It's super good! Auruo paid so you're going to have to pay him back Eld."

"Pretty sure Captain Levi lost that match by hitting it out of bounds-" Eld began but Petra shoved a baguette in his mouth before he could finish his sentence. He chomped of a huge chunk, chewed, and swallowed. "Hey, this is pretty good!"

"Huh." Levi looked at the bread and gingerly broke off a piece before popping it into his mouth. The outer crust was crunchy but the interior was soft and fluffy, almost melting in his mouth. He wondered if the family continuously baked the bread during the day. They must have because their bread was still warm and it was already past midday. "Not bad."

Auruo sat up. Hearing "not bad" from the Captain was the highest form of praise one could receive. "You should try the soup we got you before it gets cold. The beef is incredibly tender – it really just falls off the bone – and the broth has an intense flavor. If you prefer spice you could put some in – Petra, stop being a pig and pass the pepper to the Captain! - although I think it usually has enough heat without it. The vegetables are also a rather refreshing addition."

"Wow, Auruo, maybe you should jus tell Captain Levi your true feelings for him," Petra said, a tad miffed that Auruo had called her a pig earlier. She offered the pepper to Levi anyway but he declined. "You look like a young maiden in love blushing like that."

Levi ignored them and ate his soup, which was exactly as good as Auruo described it if not better. If he dipped the baguette in there, it was absolutely divine. It had been a while since he had eaten something that good. The members of his squad weren't exactly great chefs. Petra and Gunter were at least passable, but that was mainly because they didn't burn anything like Auruo and Eld. If he could eat more food like this, he'd definitely consider going out to town more.

"Ah, that was so filling," Petra said, stretching her legs out. "And very delicious."

They were sitting in a plaza, taking a break by the big fountain. Gunter had suggested they go there after lunch because it was so peaceful there. While there were far too many people there for Levi's taste (but then again Levi never really enjoyed anyone's presence even if they were sitting quietly in the corner), he did enjoy the quiet. Even Eld and Petra were too relaxed to take a jab at Auruo. The air was filled with the noise of gentle chatter, the whisper of the wind, and the smooth sonata of a violinist playing alone in the square.

"We should dance," Petra said suddenly. Her suggestion hung out in the air and, when no one answered it, Levi looked around to notice that everyone was looking at him.

"I'm not dancing," he said.

"How can you refuse our dear Pet?" Eld said. "She's the best dancer on our team and she doesn't dance with just anyone either. Do you know how many guys she's turned down at military balls?"

"Get Eld to dance with you then," Levi said. "Gunter or Auruo."

"Just one dance. It'll be fine," Petra promised. She stood up and held out her hand to him. "Eld steps on my toes too much and Auruo complains even though he's always the one making mistakes. And Gunter is…he's busy holding onto the tea, so you're the only one left! I'll even teach you if you don't know how."

"I know how to dance, it's just that I don't want to," he said, but he reached for her hand anyway and let her take him to where the rest of the couples were dancing. He was going to protest even more, mumble something about how it would be weird since everyone dancing seemed to be together, but Petra had already intertwined her fingers with his and had his right hand on her waist while her left one sat on his shoulder.

"Realx a little more," Petra said to him. "You're so stiff." She was leading him, her steps not as grandiose as the others around them. They were a little slower than those around them, falling behind the beat.

"This is embarrassing," he muttered. "And aren't I supposed to be leading?"

"Do you want to?" Petra asked, surprised. "I just assumed you didn't know how because you never danced at military balls. Or maybe it was because Hanji was always the one who to invite you to dance when they were too drunk."

"I know how to dance," he assured her. "I just wouldn't want to dance with Hanji ever, even if they were sober." He had danced with Isabel sometimes. Oftentimes he'd grumble enough for her to give up and just dance with Farlan but there were a few occasions where she nagged enough to get him to dance with her for just a song. To say he was good would be a generous compliment. To say he was decent would also be…somewhat generous. So he often stuck to just observing on the sidelines, content with sipping on the shitty wine they typically served during military balls while Erwin kissed up to the other military heads so they wouldn't cut funds. He could lead a dance though even if he was probably the absolute wrong partner for her.

If she thinks he's a shitty dancer, she doesn't show it. Instead she smiles like it's the best dance she's ever danced even though they're not nearly as graceful as the other couples. "You should dance with me at the military balls," she told him. "You look lonely standing there brooding in the corner all of the time."

"Maybe I like brooding," he grumbled.

"Well, you're certainly good at it," Petra said mock-seriously. "But I think you're good at dancing too."

He was sure she was joking because a child is probably better at dancing than he is but he looked over at her and she seemed earnest. For some reason that made him feel more embarrassed.

The fact that they're moving so slowly compared to the other dancers makes him want to stop even more but Petra kept talking to him, sometimes to tell him where to move his feet or twirl her and other times to gossip about the rest of her squad mates behind their back, and that made him feel a little bit more relaxed. Petra even told him at one point that he was "moving less like a machine and more like a person!" She also somehow managed to get him to promise her at least one dance at the next military ball. Maybe he'd get drunk enough so he could blame his lack of grace on inebriation instead of just his lack of skill.

"Have a nice dance?" Eld asked when the last song had ended and they finally returned to the group.

"It was okay," Levi muttered. He was surprisingly tired after all of that. Who knew that dancing could be so physically exhausting.

"So 'okay' that Captain Levi promised that he'd dance with me again at the next military ball," Petra said smugly. He half suspected her of being flirtatious or playful at the very least, but a glance told him that she was rubbing her closeness to her superior in her comrades' faces. Unsurprisingly, it worked.

Auruo was perhaps the most scandalized, half-shouting complaints about how Petra didn't deserve to be spending so much time with the Captain mixed with whining about how she always rejected dance invitations from him.

"Did you have a nice time?" Gunter asked when they had piled up into the carriage headed back to the castle. Auruo, Eld, and Petra were piled up on one side, all snoozing on each other's shoulders. Auruo was muttering something in his sleep while Petra and Eld snored.

He hadn't realized they had spent nearly the whole day in town together. He had expected it to be a lot more torturous but the time seemed to have flown by. "It wasn't bad," he finally admitted, leaning back in his seat.

For anyone else this might have been a pretty disappointing answer. Gunter, however, knew this was probably the best compliment anyone could get from the captain and nodded happily.

* * *

The next morning Petra was already in the kitchen making tea. "Would you like a cup, Captain?" she asked without looking up. "It's just about ready anyway."

"Might as well," he said, sitting down at his usual seat.

She poured him a cup and sat down beside him with her own cup of tea. "Did you have fun yesterday?" she asked, taking a sip. It seemed that the taste was to her pleasure because she hummed with delight after taking a taste.

"It was…alright," he admitted reluctantly.

She smiled. "See? I knew you'd like it."

"But don't expect me to go out with all of you guys again. It's hectic dealing with all of you guys on a daily basis already."

She traced the rim of her cup with a finger. "You don't have to spend your day in town with all of us at once. Maybe next time you could just go with Eld. Or Gunter. Or me."

"I'll go with you if you don't take me dancing again," he replied. Despite her talkative and playful behavior, he found himself getting along with her most out of the rest of his squad. She didn't mind silence during conversations and just seemed to be easygoing in general. He also just really liked her tea. "It was terrible."

"It was wonderful," she said. She sat back, happy that the Captain had chosen to spend time in town with her next instead of the rest of her comrades. "I'm going to brag about this to the rest of the guys. They're going to be so jealous. Especially Auruo. And also write my dad and tell him that I'm going to bring you along the next time we visit."

"You're going to what?"

She laughed at his shocked expression. "Relax! It's a joke, Levi. Ah, Captain Levi," she corrected herself.

"Levi's fine," he said. After knowing his team for a good month, it was a little embarrassing to be having this conversation with his subordinate. He supposed he had always been more of a captain than a comrade but yesterday's outing made him feel at least a tad more familiar with his squad and he could allow this kind of informality. "At least off of the battlefield. Hearing everyone call me 'Captain' all day gives me a headache."

He didn't know Petra could smile that wide. "Okay, Levi. But that means you should call the rest of us by our first names too." She drank the rest of her tea and, setting her cup down, stood up. "I'm going to tell the rest of the squad now."

"Tell them what?" he asked as she scurried out of the room.

"That I get the privilege of accompanying you on your next town outing," she called back. She jogged back for a bit, popping her head back in the doorway. "That makes it final, by the way. It'd be embarrassing for me if you backed out!" Petra ran away after that, leaving Levi with her dirty cup. She probably did that on purpose knowing that he wouldn't chase her down and retract his earlier deal with her when there was a dirty teacup lying around.

Well. He supposed he could tolerate another outing with the members of his squad. After all, their last one wasn't half bad.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Went to the manga store 20 min away from my house and it was very lovely. Had a lot of Attack on Titan but ended up just buying Akatsuki no Yona for my sister's late bday gift before hitting the recycle bookstore at my house and then buying Attack on Titan. (Pretty much half price and in really good condition for a used copy! So I'm super happy about that.)_

 _Hope you guys don't mind weekly updates and whatnot. It's pretty hot where I live so my drive for writing is dwindling :( But have a nice week~_


	24. Heal

**A/N:** _I like writing relationships between characters you don't really see in the anime. There always seems to be just enough info to write a drabble or two in between the scenes that take place in the anime._

* * *

Petra likes to make him tea in the middle of the night. It's the third time she's tasked to monitor him when she suggests that they head up to the kitchen. "Unless you enjoy staring at the ceiling of your cold, dark cell," she laughs. It's a little bit bitter, he realizes, especially when he remembers overhearing her protesting his sleeping quarters to Captain Levi a few nights before. Eren recalls her saying that they may as well be putting him in a prison. This must be her way of making him feel more like a comrade and less like a prisoner. "Besides, standing watch outside of your cell is pretty boring. At least the kitchen has food."

He's still nervous even after they've snuck out the first few nights. She always makes him tea. Sometimes green, sometimes black, sometimes chamomile. He can't tell the difference between tastes but he knows that it tastes good even though Petra laughs and tells him he can't possibly taste anything with all of the sugar he's putting in. One time she makes him cookies but the smell of baking lingers until morning, capturing the attention of Auruo and the other members of the squad. He thought for sure they'd both get a scolding but Petra only shook it off as a craving she had in the middle of the night. Captain Levi only sighed and told her not to make it a habit. She still offers to bake something for him every night after that but he always declines although he does have a sweet tooth and it's been a while since he had something as delectable as the cookies she offered him.

She teaches him how to make tea after a couple of nights. She says it's a good thing to learn. He can never quite make it the way she does. Sometimes he adds too much water or doesn't let the leaves steep long enough. Petra's always kind when giving him pointers though and drinks every last drop no matter how bad it tastes. She whispers to him that he should probably avoid making tea for the team for as long as he can. Captain Levi gets particularly grouchy if he doesn't get his tea the way he likes it, she giggles while ruffling his hair.

He likes talking to her in the middle of the night. She has a calming presence and smiles a lot, something that baffles him at times because he knows how much death and destruction she's faced outside of the Walls. Sometimes she tells him stories about her training days and he swaps his own tales about what a hard ass Instructor Shadis was during his own trainee days. Other nights she tells him about pranks she and Eld play on each other on their days off. He doesn't think that he's very good company. He's a little awkward when telling his own stories, laughs nervously when he listens to hers, but one night she pats his hand and tells him how glad she is that he's joined their squad. He doesn't quite feel like he fits in with the rest of the squad, but the nights he spends with Petra certainly help him feel less like a stranger.

Every few nights Petra pulls out a pen and paper and writes a letter. He's always wondered if she wants time alone to write them but the one time he tried to leave she scolded him for trying to leave early so he stays. He doesn't know how she can multitask so well, writing a letter and holding a conversation with him at the same time, but she can.

"You've never asked who I'm writing to," she says one night, taking a sip of the tea that Eren had just brought to her.

"Er, I never really thought it was any of my business," Eren says. It's true that he's always been a curious sort but he isn't quite sure just how familiar he should be with one of the veteran members of the Legion. Besides, letters were private things after all.

She smiles at his reply and finishes adding a period to the sentence she's writing. "Would you like to know?" she asks, setting her pen down. "It's not a secret. Everyone else on the squad knows."

"You don't have to tell me," he mumbles, fidgeting in his chair. "You just seem really invested in them so they must be important to you. I don't want to pry or anything."

Petra laughs. "It's fine; it's not a secret or anything," she assures him. "They're letters to my dad. He was really upset when I told him I wanted to join the Legion. I send him letters every week or so to calm his nerves."

"My mom was a lot like that," Eren says, suddenly remembering his own parent. He could remember her anger when Mikasa had revealed that he was planning on joining the military. He wonders if she'd still be mad at him now if she were alive. If she were alive, would he even be where he is now?

Petra must notice his use of past tense because she reaches over to cover his hand with hers. "I'm sure that if she could see you now," Petra says quietly, "she'd think you were very brave."

Petra's a lot like a mother, Eren realizes. Although she's still quite young, she has somewhat of matronly aura about her and is always looking out for him during training or just making sure he fits in with the rest of the squad. When he was first introduced into the squad, he was sure he'd never feel like he was a part of them but Petra feels a little bit like family now.

"I'm very sorry that I brought this up," she says to him quite earnestly. "It was very inconsiderate of me."

That's not it though. She shouldn't have to apologize to him. She's never done anything wrong. Any other person he would have gotten angry at but not her. She's the only person he knows, aside from Mikasa and Armin, who he'd be okay with talking about his mother. He wants to tell her this but what comes out of his mouth is, "I was a terrible son."

"That's not true," Petra says immediately. She says this far too quickly and part of him wants to call her a liar but, he thinks, this is Petra. Petra isn't a liar. "Eren, you are a wonderful person. You're such a dedicated and hardworking soldier. You always offer a hand during chores. Any mother would be proud of you."

"I never listened to her," he continues. "She cried all of the time because I would always fight against every word she said. And in the end I still joined the Scouting Legion despite her wishes. She's probably right about me ending up here. I haven't been able to save a single person. I almost got Armin and Mikasa killed only a few days ago."

Petra doesn't say anything for a while, just rubs his back in small circles. "Do you want to try writing to her?" she says quietly.

"That won't bring her back," he croaks.

"Nothing's going to bring her back." The way she says it isn't cruel. It's just a statement of fact. "But it might make you feel better to say the words you were never able to say to her when she was alive."

"Will it work?" he asks. He's doubtful but he takes the pen that Petra hands him and frowns at the blank sheet of paper that she slides across the table to him. He's never written anyone a letter before. He couldn't imagine writing one to a recipient who was no longer alive.

"It's worth a shot," she says softly.

So he writes.

They do that for the next couple of nights during Petra's shift, write to their parents side by side. At first he's just venting, writing so furiously that he tears the page a couple of times. She doesn't say anything to him during those times, just hands him another fresh sheet to write. After he's written about how angry he's been – how he wants to kill all of the Titans, how he hates himself for not being strong enough to save her, how he doesn't really remember how and why his father's gone – he begins to write about other things, things he never really told her back when she was alive and things she'd never be able to hear again. Like how much he wishes he had been a good son, what a good mother she was, or how much he loved her even if it never seemed that way.

He doesn't think they help, not at first, but as he burns the letters every night, he pretends that they disappear into someplace where they can reach his mother. It takes a few weeks until he realizes that these letters are more for him than anyone else. They let him apologize and come to terms with his mother's death. And they let him heal.

* * *

 **Prompt:** _Letters_

 **Word Count:** _1,525_


	25. Downtime

**A/N:** _For Elivra26 who requested a Levi/Erwin interaction fic :)_

* * *

He walks into the room and it stinks of liquor. He's never really seen the appeal of it. Soldiers in the Scouting Legion would drink it by the keg on their nights off, claiming that it helps them take their mind off of the nightmares outside, but he's tried drinking glass after glass of that stuff and he'd just feel hollow inside and somewhat disgusted. He just leaves the drinking to everyone else – give him tea or coffee instead – and he usually sees Erwin do the same. The commander is typically too engrossed in new theories and plots to bother with drinking so it's strange stumbling into Erwin's room and seeing the usually busy man just sitting at his desk and staring deeply into a corner of the room, an empty glass of wine in his hand.

"Are you drinking?" It's even stranger to him that Erwin's drinking because the loss of his right hand has made things like pouring bottles of wine so difficult. It seems he's gotten the hang of drinking by himself though because Levi doesn't see any spills on the commander's desk.

Erwin turns lazily, a contrast to his usually sharp movements, and gives Levi a broad smile. "Levi! I didn't even notice that you entered the room." He gestures to the half-empty bottle of wine on his desk. "Care for a glass? I was about to pour another one for myself just now."

He's had wine before at the military balls. Those were the few occasions where he allowed himself to get drunk. It makes it easier for him to deal with Nile Dawk and the rest of the military assholes that way, but the taste of it makes him want to gag. It always tastes like expired grape juice and grape juice isn't even good to begin with. "That shit's disgusting," Levi says. He leans against the edge of Erwin's desk. "I'd rather face a fleet of Titans."

"I'll take that as a no," Erwin says. He pours himself another glass; it's so full that it looks like it might spill over but he takes a large swig of it without spilling a drop. He lets out a content sigh. "You really should consider having a glass, Levi. It's very rare that we get to celebrate successes. Historia taking up the throne is possibly the most hopeful thing to happen within these Walls."

"Hmm." He can't say he's not happy about that but there's no telling how long this period of good luck would last.

"You did an impressive job with your squad, Levi," Erwin continues. "Not many could pull off a successful mission on such short notice with a newly assembled team."

He shrugs. "The brats are more capable than they look, I suppose."

Erwin hums to himself and takes another sip. He looks thoughtfully at the corner of the room again before turning his gaze to Levi. "Who do you think would win a fight in your current squad? Excluding yourself, of course."

Levi has to pause for a moment and check that he isn't dreaming. These types of questions are what he expects from Hanji, not Erwin. Sure enough though he's wide-awake and Erwin really is the man that has uttered the strange question. "Are you fucking serious?"

"Humor me."

Levi sighs and crosses his arms across his chest. It wouldn't hurt to answer at any rate. "The Ackerman girl then, although I doubt she'd fight Jaeger willingly."

Erwin seems to play around with this in his head, summing up all of Mikasa's strengths and weaknesses against the others. While Erwin's never seen her abilities up close, Levi's sure the commander has kept a close enough eye on the members of the Scouting Legion to know how to use them effectively, Mikasa included. "What if they had weapons?" Erwin asks. "Would that even the playing field?"

"Does Ackerman get a weapon?"

"No."

"Yes, but only if Braus has a gun or a bow and arrow," Levi answers. Armin also has also made a kill with a gun but Levi isn't sure exactly how much of that was skill and how much of it was luck and fast reflexes.

"Could be dangerous even if Sasha doesn't have a bow and arrow," Erwin muses. "Arlert has a good head on his shoulders after all. He could surely come up with a plan with the rest of the squad that would give Mikasa a run for her money."

"True. His self-doubt is the only thing getting in his way."

"Jean has some pretty impressive leadership skills as well," Erwin says.

"Hm. Haven't really thought about that very much. You're not wrong though." What Armin lacks in decisiveness and confidence, Jean has an abundance of. The two can be a rather formidable leadership force in the future. "Although we should mention Historia if we're discussing leadership skills. She has the whole kingdom bowing to her now."

"Ah, Historia. A woman fit to lead our nation in these dark times." Erwin lifts his glass as if to toast the new monarch. He downs the rest of his drink and smacks his lips. He does always tend to get a little sloppier when he's drunk, Levi remembers. "And Eren?"

"Jaeger?" Levi scoffs. "Only if he has Arlert with him or Ackerman on his side."

"You don't think he can go toe-to-toe with Mikasa? You don't seem to factor in his Titan shifting abilities," Erwin says.

"Ackerman can beat the kid in her sleep. Changing him into a fifteen meter tall monster wouldn't affect anything."

Erwin looks amused. "Is that all you have to say about his abilities after working with him so closely these past weeks?"

Levi sighs and looks up at the ceiling as if it would hold a lost compliment somewhere for Eren. "He's a hard worker," Levi finally says.

Erwin smiles. "A good word for everyone on your squad all in one conversation. Are you fond of them, Levi?"

He rolls his eyes. "You're just so drunk you're imagining things."

"Perhaps." Erwin doesn't seem insulted at the tone his subordinate has taken with him. He's used to it from Levi. Instead he holds out the bottle and shakes it a bit. "There's enough for both of us to have a glass."

He's about to decline but what the hell. It's late and he can't let Erwin drink alone like a sad sap or worse – have Hanji stumble on the drunk commander which would inevitably lead both of them to engage in a drinking contest this late at night. (Hanji has a pretty unsavory habit of stealing alcohol from the military police and stashing it away to drink with other soldiers.) So he sighs and walks towards Erwin's cabinet, pulling out his own glass. "Sure, why not?"

Erwin fills their glasses and sets the bottle down. He lifts up his glass towards Levi. "To Queen Historia's new reign, the future successes of the Legion, and the hope that all the secrets will soon be revealed."

Levi clinks his glass against the commander's. "A lot to toast for," he says after taking a sip. It still tastes disgusting, he finds.

"We have a lot more to look forward to now," Erwin answers, taking a sip as well.

Levi likes to be cautious. The celebration seems a bit premature, he thinks, but then again they rarely ever have anything to celebrate so he takes another swig of his drink. It's only for one night after all.

* * *

 **A/N:** _I asked my boyfriend what he thought Erwin and Levi would talk about if they ever had free time and he said, "Which one in the 104th squad would win in a fight."_

 _I also don't really know what drunk people are like. My family just kind of gets really loud and then pull out all of the musical instruments in the house and try to form a band. Weird stuff._

 _Listening to Lorde's Melodrama atm (which is amazing although really sad) and just finished Voltron s3 right before I finished writing/editing this._

 _Thanks again for the requests and reviews :)_

 **Word Count:** _1,204_


	26. Blush

**A/N:** _Currently working on another request that will hopefully be out in two days at the very most. Have some EreAni while you wait._

* * *

He's not good at focusing. His attention tends to wander a lot and it's rare that he's able to keep to one topic at a time during a conversation. He finds, though, that he can stare at Annie for hours and never get tired of it. She has this habit of tugging on her bangs when she's thinking particularly hard, like now as she reads the text for her literature class. She's still when she reads. The only movement from her is the steady up and down of her chest from her breathing and the rapid movement of her eyes as they flicker across the page. Her slim figure is hunched over his desk, making her appear even smaller than she already is.

"Annie," Eren says suddenly, breaking the silence.

She looks up from her reading, a little bit miffed at the disturbance. "What?"

"You're really beautiful."

"Oh," she says, relaxed now. Most people don't think Annie could ever be anything but cold but Eren knows. He sees it right now as she looks at him, her gaze softening as she looks at him lying on his bed. "Well. You're cute too."

"Thanks." He loves it when she compliments him. The words always come out a little awkward as if she's not used to saying nice things to people. She always gets embarrassed afterward, her cheeks growing pink like they are right now. He's probably being mean right now but he can't help tease her a little more. He props himself up on an elbow and cocks his head. "That's not what I said though."

Her mouth opens slightly as if to argue but quickly shuts because she knows he's right. She quickly gets back to her reading and pretends she hadn't heard him at all but he knows she has from the red in her cheeks and the way she's tapping her finger on the desk, something she only does when she's flustered or nervous.

How cute.

* * *

 **A/N:** _*Uses bf as a model for Eren because my bf is also an overly passionate idiot*_

 _Thanks for reviews as per usual! If you guys ever want to see more of anything (character, pairing, specific event), feel free to leave a request :)_

 **Word Count:** _325_


	27. Half

**A/N:** _Also for Elivra26 who also suggested a Mikasa/Sasha interaction._

* * *

She likes to pay attention to how her friends eat. She can lie and say it's because she cares about them getting the proper nutrition everyday, but it's really because she's monitoring how much food she can pilfer off of them. Take, for example, Armin. He's really easy to steal food off of because he's always spacing out. Even if he does notice he's nice about letting Sasha sneak a bite anyway. Jean's more of a stickler about food, whining whenever she tries to sneakily take a piece of meat although occasionally she'll manage to haggle him for a vegetable instead because if she dips it in meat sauce it's relatively scrumptious. She never thinks about taking anything from Eren because he pretty much inhales whatever is on his plate as soon as he sits down. Historia used to give her food back when she went by Christa but she looked too much of a robot for Sasha to take any food without a clear conscious after she revealed her true identity. She has to fight Connie for any food off of his plate but he'll sometimes claim that he's full some nights and give her his leftovers, which she's always thankful for. Mikasa's kind of tough to judge. Most of the time she'll smack Sasha away as soon as she reaches out for even a grain of rice. Sometimes she'll catch Mikasa in a good mood though and the stoic girl will pretend she doesn't see her food being smuggled away from her. And now? Well…

"I don't think she's eating," Sasha suddenly says to Connie and Jean over dinner.

"Who?" Connie asks.

Jean is unsurprisingly the one who figures out who Sasha is talking about first. He's had an eye for Mikasa since the first day of training. "She means Mikasa."

"Yeah," she says. "Mikasa's never been one to wolf down her dinner like Eren or anything but I've noticed that she hasn't eaten very much at all ever since Eren and Historia were kidnapped."

"That's probably why," Jean mumbles, picking at his food a tad sullenly. It's no secret that he's pretty jealous about Mikasa's close relationship to Eren.

"Shouldn't she be eating more then?" Connie asks through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. "It's important that she keeps up her stamina. She can't possibly save Eren on an empty stomach. And Captain Levi did order us to eat up."

"She doesn't really like the captain in the first place so why would she even listen to him?" Sasha says, lowering her voice so that no one overhears her. She's pretty sure she's far from the captain's favorite already and she doesn't want him to dislike her anymore than he already does.

Jean stands up suddenly. "I'm going to talk to her."

Connie snickers, not even trying to hide the fact that he's laughing at his friend. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" he asks. "Most of the time you end up a blabbering mess in front of her."

He sits back down, crossing his arms across his chest like a disgruntled child. "What? So you're going to try to talk to her because that's a better idea? You'd be even worse than me!"

"Yeah, you can be kind of annoying," Sasha says without thinking.

She's never seen Connie look so shocked or offended. "You think I'm annoying?"

"Maybe I should go talk to her," Sasha says hurriedly, hoping to make Connie forget what she had just said but the way he looks at her tells her that she's not letting her off the hook anytime soon.

"Yeah, because you're a much better option than any of us," Jean snickers. "You're probably the one she likes the least because of all of the food you've stolen from her during our training days. Maybe that's the whole reason you want to talk to her in the first place. You're hoping her mood will make it even easier for you to get food from her." His chin rests on his hand and he smiles at Sasha smugly as if he's figured her all out.

She'll admit that that's the reason why she noticed in the first place. It's been so easy to steal food from Mikasa these past few days but she's insulted that Jean can't imagine her genuinely being worried for her comrade. Angry, she stands up. "I'm going to talk to her," she says, glaring at Jean.

Both Jean and Connie are startled. "Right now?" Connie asks.

"Yep!" she says, taking her dinner with her.

She can feel their eyes following her as she sits down across from Mikasa. Both Armin and Mikasa look up. Armin looks surprised but Mikasa looks like she couldn't care less that the bubbly hunter had taken a seat at her table.

"Hi, Sasha," Armin mumbles, forcing a smile on his face. He's probably hurting as much as Mikasa is, Sasha realizes, but at least he's not starving himself. Then again, his gloomy presence is most likely not helping Mikasa in the least bit.

"Jean wants to talk to you," Sasha says to Armin. She doesn't think she can handle both Armin and Mikasa at the same time and Armin has gotten along with Jean despite their differences. Maybe Jean could help him snap out of it while she talks to Mikasa.

Armin points to himself, startled. "He wants to talk to me?" He glances over where Connie and Jean sit and the two boys just stare stupidly and blankly back at him, more interested in watching Mikasa rather than the blonde genius. "He doesn't look like he's expecting me."

"Trust me, he does," Sasha assures him, waving him off.

He looks at her doubtfully but eventually does get up and leave, much to her relief.

When Mikasa sees that she's alone with Sasha, she sighs but doesn't say anything.

"Hi, Mikasa," Sasha says cheerfully. She usually counts on her chipper attitude to lighten the mood but she feels as if making the atmosphere around Mikasa less gloomy is an impossible feat. "Are you enjoying dinner?"

Mikasa picks at her food, moving around her plate with her fork. "It's okay," she responds.

Sasha notices that the food does look like it's been nibbled at a little bit but it mostly just looks as if Mikasa just pushed it around her plate a lot. The meat is cut up and spread apart making it seem as though it's been mostly eaten but Sasha suspects that Mikasa has only taken a bite of it at the very most. "The potatoes are good," Sasha says, desperately to talk about anything. "I mean, they're a little salty but they're better than usual."

"Hm."

"And the meat isn't dry this time!"

"Hm."

It's so frustrating talking to her. It's like talking to a tree or something, some sort of object that you know is alive but just can't or won't interact with you no matter how much you talk at it. "Come on, Mikasa, you've got to eat something. Armin's eaten more than you at dinner than all of your meals combined today and that guy eats like a mouse!"

"I've been eating," Mikasa says stiffly but the way that she avoids Sasha's gaze shows that she's lying. "I'm just not particularly hungry right now."

Sasha sighs. "Look, I know you miss Eren," she says quietly. She was hoping to avoid talking about Eren altogether but it seems like the only way to talk to Mikasa is to speak about things directly instead of beating around the bush. "We all miss him but not eating isn't going to help us get him back any faster."

"This food just tastes like garbage," Mikasa mumbles under her breath. She sounds like the captain for a second but Sasha decides this thought is best kept unsaid.

"It's better than nothing. If you don't eat, you won't be at your top form. Your movements will be sluggish and your reactions will be slow. You don't want that, do you?"

"Hm." It's the same response but the way she says it is different. She's fiddling with her food again but she actually looks like she's contemplating the thought of eating it instead of just picking it apart on her plate to make like she ate something. Sasha takes this as a sign of improvement even if the progress seems miniscule.

She's not really sure what else to do at this point but she has an idea and begins to tear her meat in half and then slapped it onto Mikasa's plate rather messily. Sasha ignores Mikasa's confused expression and sits back, a smile on her face. "Go on! Eat it. You can half of my meat. You can't not eat food that someone gives you! That'd be rude."

Mikasa's a little speechless for a while but then a grin spreads across her face. "This is supposed to be half?" she asks, stabbing the meat with her fork and bringing it up to inspect it closer. "This is more like a quarter of your share."

Sure enough the slab of meat on Sasha's plate is a whole lot bigger than the portion on Mikasa's and Sasha can't help but feel a little bit embarrassed. "Well, I factored in the pep talk from earlier when I was splitting it up so what I gave you is generous enough," she mumbles.

"Hm," Mikasa says again, but she nibbles at the beef that Sasha had given her. She's by no means happy right now but her expression is less blank than it was before and Sasha is happy to see Mikasa making an effort to eat her food.

By the end of mealtime Mikasa's plate is pretty much cleaned off. It's probably the first time Sasha has been happy about food that hasn't gone to her. She's not thinking of sharing meals with anyone again anytime soon but, damn, sharing her food feels pretty good.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Sasha's definitely one of my favorite characters from SnK. I love that she got her own character arc + ep this past season! Her interactions with Mikasa are oftentimes really funny too!_

 **Word Count:** _1,653_


	28. Almost

**Tumblr Request:** _Given the new chapter, how about writing angsty training days fics about the Titan trio, or at least one of them._

 _The chapter isn't that new anymore but, you know. I ended up writing about Reiner because I wrote about all of the Titan trio except for him before this lol. Poor Reiner._

* * *

"You almost got it," Bertholdt says to him. He pulls Reiner up once again. The other warriors ignore him, used to Reiner getting his ass kicked.

Everyone else seems to be progressing at a faster pace than him and Reiner can't help but feel embarrassed as his friend helps him up. He's pretty sure Bertholdt's words were said out of kindness though because he hears Porco snicker in the background. "Thanks," he says, brushing the dirt off of his clothing. "I'll get it next time."

He hears someone scoff. It's Annie. She's normally silent and detached, seemingly disinterested in becoming a warrior although the fact that she's one of the top candidates says otherwise. Why is it now that she's reacting to something?

Bertholdt gently steers Reiner away from her and towards the other warrior candidates – Zeke, Pieck, Galliard, Marcel – but Reiner breaks away from him and finds himself making his way to Annie. He's so much larger than her, looming over her like a giant, but she doesn't bat an eyelash. He should probably say something but he only stands there and glowers down at her.

She sighs, shaking her bangs away from her eyes. "What do you want, Reiner?"

"Fight me, Annie." He's not quite sure what compels him to say this. He wants to prove himself as a warrior, a definitive candidate instead of someone stamped with a question mark on his back. The other warriors have turned their heads, curious as to what is happening, while Bertholdt is tugging at his sleeve, whispering that this is a bad idea and that they should get going. It's too late though. He's already in a fighting stance, ready to beat take any punch from Annie.

She stands there for a second and it looks as if she'll walk away. She really doesn't have anything to prove against Reiner. She has the highest hand-to-hand combat score out of all of the warriors. She must enjoy the thrill of the fight though because she goes into her familiar stance, fists raised and her feet planted firmly on the ground.

It's over before it even starts. All it takes is one lunge from him and Annie swings him across her back, throwing him to the ground with a thud. His ass is to the sky and his mouth tastes like dirt. In the background he hears their instructor, a Marleyan soldier, telling them to stop fooling around but the man's tone says he couldn't care less if the kids beat each other to a pulp. Galliard is laughing out loud while an amused Pieck compliments Annie's technique.

Bertholdt hurriedly helps Reiner up, brushing off his friend's clothes and mumbling apologies to Annie but the girl has already walked away. "You shouldn't pick fights with her like that," Bertholdt mumbles.

"I'll get her next time," Reiner says, pulling away from Bertholdt. He'll show her that he could be a threat, both to her and those Eldians on Paradis. He could be the best warrior. He'd show them.

* * *

He sees joining the military as another chance. It's another chance to prove his abilities, his strength and intellect. Last time it was as a warrior but this time it's as a soldier. Marcel's been dead for years, but his last words about who the last warrior should have been still haunts him. He'd be able to prove himself now pretending to be a Wall Eldian soldier. He wouldn't be someone who almost didn't make it. He was going to be someone who deserved to be chosen and prove them all that he deserved to be there.

This idea consumes him and he sees it becoming a reality, becoming the best out of the trainee division. In a year he forgets the true reason why he even wanted the top ranking in the first place.

* * *

His name is called second. Second is good, he has to tell himself. It's not first but it's still good, isn't it? At least his name isn't called last like it was…Like what? He has the feeling that something like this has happened years ago. His friends being ranked, called up, pledging themselves to give up their lives for a bigger cause. He can't remember where though.

"Second place, huh?" Bertholdt whispers, joining him in the front with the rest of the top ten trainees. "Almost first."

"Almost, yeah," Reiner says. It's not the best but he can't help but grin. "Still pretty good though, huh?"

"Definitely."

For some reason he turns to Annie. He doesn't know why. It's not like they're friends. She's knocked him down every single time he's tried to approach her and she's made it clear that she wants absolutely nothing to do with him.

It doesn't matter. He thinks for a brief second that she's bitter about being in a lower rank than he is but that doesn't really make sense. She's never really cared much for titles or position. Annie's really only talked about being interested in joining the military police and now she has the chance to. It's just how she is, distant and uninterested, and he really shouldn't think about it anymore than he is now.

 _Annie screaming at him, yelling something at him and Bertholdt. Blood everywhere and the feeling of wanting to vomit out of fear. Loud sounds like thunder but it's the quake of the earth as the giants chase after them. Walls crumbling and people screaming. Relief at reaching a safe place. Terror for the things to come. A promise between friends. A promise to a world from a long time ago._

He winces and holds his head slightly.

Bertholdt puts a hand on Reiner's shoulder, visibly worried about his friend. "Are you okay?"

"It's fine," he lies. "Just a small headache. I'll be fine in a bit."

He's not. He keeps dwelling on those visions in his head. They're so vivid that they seem like memories but they don't quite make sense and the more he tries to remember them the more they begin to fade away. It's like he almost remembered something important but the memory escaped him at just the last second.

He goes to sleep and when he wakes up he doesn't remember a thing.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Feeling kinda anxious because the summer is ending and I still have not done things I should have done...heh..._

 **Word Count:** _1,027_


	29. All These Things I Can't Remember

**A/N:** _Manga spoilers so don't read on if you haven't caught up!_

 _Kind of playing with the idea of love transcending death. Somewhat influenced by Doctor Who and Stephanie Meyer's The Host. Ymir's memories begin to influence Porco's own thoughts and he finds himself experiencing things that she's been through as he discovers more and more of her memories. A lot of the things that happen to "him" are things that have happened to her. I just use him/he pronouns during the memory sequences so the audience can understand that Porco feels as if he's living these experiences._

* * *

They say the memories don't come back all at once. He hates that they ambush him at the strangest times. He can be eating or just staring off into space when a memory hits, a flashback of things that someone else experienced but the visions all appear as if he had seen them with his own eyes.

"Do they ever stop?" he asks Pieck one day.

"Aw, you can't handle it?" Pieck teases. She's resting on the couch in that strange way she has, curled up more like a cat than a person. "Poor Pokko."

Normally he'd be irritated at the annoying nickname but the memories have been plaguing him ever since he became the Jaw Titan. It's so strange, seeing these memories that should belong to someone else. "All these things I'm seeing," he says, "they're all of these things I can't remember…these things I shouldn't remember because I've never seen them before…but somehow they're my memories now."

"They are," Pieck says, sitting up. She's more serious now. She leans against the arm of the chair. She has that calm and sleepy look that she always but that glimmer in her eyes that she typically has whenever she discusses Titan affairs. "It's a natural memory transfer that happens to everyone after the Titan power is shifted to someone new. Don't worry about it so much. You'll get used to it."

"If you say so," he says reluctantly.

She looks as if she's about to laugh at his doubtful expression but a thought seems to come to her mind and she leans forward, serious once more. "You're the first of us to have acquired a Titan from the Eldians of Paradis," she murmurs. It's something that the warriors know but haven't really thought about, Porco realizes. "Is there something interesting about the things you've seen, Pokko? You know you can tell me anything."

He's about to open his mouth and share the memories that are now in his possession. They might be less of a burden to him if he can share them with someone. Maybe Pieck will be able to make more sense of them, piece all of these fractured pieces together. He absolutely wants to and he doesn't know why he didn't start sharing them the moment he woke up after consuming the Jaw Titan and he feels the words begin to spill of his mouth but a girl pops up in his mind. Her hair is like spun sunshine, her eyes blue like the sky, and a radiant smile lights up her face. His mind blanks and a vaguely familiar voice in the back of his mind says, _Protect her._

"It's nothing," he mumbles, avoiding her gaze so that she won't be able to tell he's lying. "They just give me a headache sometimes."

She observes him for a while but he doesn't lift his head, fearful that if their eyes meet she'll try to dig the truth out of him. She seems to accept his answer though because she gets up, walking over to him with her crutches and reaches out to ruffle his hair. "Well, tell me if anything comes up that you want to talk about." She leaves after that, the door shutting behind her.

He's left alone in that room with his thoughts and he can't help but wonder why he listened to that voice in his head and why he feels the need to protect that girl with the golden hair.

* * *

The first memory comes right after he consumes the Jaw Titan. He thinks he's prepared for it. Pieck and the others had warned him about it before, how these visions from another person's past would soon be his. He thought it would be like observing something taking place from a distance, like a sunset, but the memories prove to be far more intense. No, he's become the person, this Eldian devil, and it's worse than he could have ever imagined.

He doesn't have very much thought about the Eldian girl when she arrived and she was held captive in all of the time he had known her. She was more like a thing to him, a shadow lurking in the corner of a room, but now he stands in her place in her last moments and he's astounded at just how human she is.

His legs shake as he stands, shackled and bound, standing before the most gruesome creature he's ever seen before. He's seen Titans before, at least from a distance, but somehow this creature is more nightmarish, a culmination of all of the horrors packed into a vaguely human body. He can't even scream in terror as the Titan approaches, crawling towards him on its limbs with a grotesque grin on its face. _But that's supposed to be me,_ he realizes.

He struggles to break free from his chains but he's hopelessly tied up with no chance of escaping. He can only watch in horror as the Titan draws nearer, its eyes glistening with hunger as it gazes upon him. It reaches out, grabbing him in its hand, and opens its mouth to take a bite.

He wakes up in a cold sweat, still shaking like he had in his memory. He shivers as he realizes that the girl's memories will now haunt him for the rest of his life.

* * *

He's always wondered about Marcel's life on Paradis when he was sent away on that mission years ago. He had always assumed that Marcel would come back without a doubt. The thought that any of the warriors, trained since children to succeed and bring the Founding Titan, would fail was unthinkable to him. When the warriors returned that day with only three of the original shifters, his brother not one of them, his heart dropped.

He has gone through all of the reports that Reiner had given in his mind. Marcel had barely lasted a day on the island before being consumed by a mindless Titan. He was such a promising warrior. How could that happen?

It happens in a flash, he finds out later.

He can't quite remember his own time as a mindless Titan. He had only been one for such a brief period of time but this memory feels familiar to his own.

"Mindless" isn't an accurate term to describe a Titan with no shifting abilities. It's not that you do not have thoughts as a mindless Titan, Porco thinks to himself. It's that you have no real control over them and cannot act upon them, relying instead on instincts. It's like he's drowning in his mind and struggling to find one thought in there to keep him afloat but it slips away from him as soon as he reaches for it.

He sees himself breaking out of the surface of the earth like a devil crawling out of hell and reaching for the nearest thing to eat – four young children camping out in the open. He can't say why but he feels the need to consume them, devour them, in the hopes that doing so would rid him of the body he's trapped in right now. How long has he been dormant underground? He doesn't know. He doesn't care. He just wants out right now.

He reaches for the young blond boy, his eyes wide with terror. The boy's feet are rooted to the ground and just as he's about to grab him another boy shoves the blonde out of the way, taking his place in Porco's – no, it's the girl's whose memory this is – fist. Porco recognizes the boy's face. It's just as he remembers it – turned up nose, black hair, bright-eyed. It's the same face that he saw when he last saw his brother leave.

He wants to get out of this memory. He doesn't want to watch his brother die. The hands that pick up his brother aren't his, he knows this, but it feels like they might as well be. He's screaming in his head to make it stop but it's no use. He's forced to watch as he kills his own brother.

* * *

There's a girl who pops up frequently in this woman's memories. Her hair shines bright in the sunlight and she has a kind smile but it looks strained if you look closely enough. She's trying so hard to be a saint, someone she's not. Somehow he can sympathize with her although he doesn't know why. It must be this sympathy that forces him to linger around her in all of these memories, acting something like a protective shadow. It's more of an unnecessary precaution though, being her bodyguard. She's more than capable of handling herself and he has to admire her ferocity on the training grounds. While her physical strength is hardly a match for some of the other top members of the trainee squad, her ability to hover so close to the top ten is admirable.

Her name is Christa. A voice in the back of his head tells him it isn't though, not really. This is just the name she's known by at this point in these memories. He finds himself calling her name frequently, liking the way that it leaves his mouth. _You're so cute, Christa. Christa's the best. Christa, marry me, okay?_

If the girl is annoyed at the way he clings to her constantly she hides it well. She smiles whenever he's nearby, a smile that's almost genuine. He wants to see it more and makes a vow to stay by her side forever.

* * *

He's been told stories of the goddess Ymir, the first Titan. He doesn't find it coincidental that the shifter he consumes shares the same name. It makes sense that the Eldians of Paradis would name themselves after monsters. But this name isn't something that this girl chose. It was placed upon her like a crown and was snatched away just as quickly.

He can feel her amazement about being plucked from streets and made a goddess. He revels at the cheers from the crowds as he walks the street. He devours the food placed before him at the table. He's never eaten such savory foods before and licks every crumb from the plate as if each meal will be his last. The clothes he wears are made of rich silks and threaded with gold. Fine jewelry decorates his head, his neck, his wrists and he loves the noises they make as he moves. But this moment doesn't last.

It leaves as soon as it came. He's struck down, beaten. He's stripped of his clothes and jewels and forced to wear rags and chains in their place. Never mind his empty stomach; he thirsts for even just a swallow of water but his captors only taunt him with scraps before feeding them to the stray dogs and cats along the streets. There are times when he even longs to eat the rotten fruit that the crowds – crowds that had once chanted his name, crowds that are now screaming it angrily – throw at him. He's tried once and the soldiers guarding him beat him he woke up black and blue. Was becoming a goddess worth the fall?

He doesn't think that it can get much worse than this. He's been stripped of his title and cursed because of the person they made him be. They've jeered at him and called him a monster. That still doesn't seem to be enough for them though. They want to give him hell.

So they inject him with a serum to turn him into the monster they always said he was and force him to roam the rest of his days trapped inside the body of a devil.

* * *

He sees her smile, really smile, and he understands why Ymir feels the need to protect this beautiful, precious girl so much. No, it's more than just Ymir now. He knows he has to protect her. Historia, the girl who has been stripped of the crown that was rightfully hers, holds her in his arms and he reaches out to touch her face. His fingers brush her cheek and she smiles at him like she had smiled minutes before when she had seen him in his devil form.

"Ymir," she says. It doesn't matter that she's not saying his name. It's the name of his past life. It's almost the same as calling his own. Her voice is filled with love as she gazes at him. That's all that matters.

 _I'll protect her_. It's too difficult to tell if this is his thought or Ymir's. Perhaps there's no difference anymore. Perhaps they're the same.

* * *

"Who's Historia?" Pieck asks one day.

He's drowsy, just waking up for a nap. He rubs his eyes sleepily, confused at why the sunlight is streaming in through the window when he had just been dreaming only moments before. "Historia?" he repeats. He wonders how Pieck is able to know that name when he's been trying to hide it from her so desperately.

She's not sitting how she usually is. She's upright, her arms folded across her chest and her legs crossed. The usual relaxed look she has is replaced with a serious one. He's noticed that she's becoming a lot more serious with him, pestering him about the memories that are slowly coming to him. There's been a distance growing between them ever since he had avoided telling her anything about Ymir's memories the first time, he thinks. "You mumbled 'Historia' in your sleep," she says quietly. "Is it a name? Whose name is it?"

The gap between them weighs heavy in his mind. He could close it if he answers honestly but he remembers the girl and her smile, her willingness to stay beside him even when his true form was shown, and he swallows the truth and offers Pieck another lie instead. "It must have been gibberish," he finally replies, turning in his bed as if he were going back to sleep again.

"You always were a weird sleeper," she says but there's no humor in her voice. She doesn't go to his bed to ruffle his hair. She just leaves.

He should feel terrible at hiding secrets from one of his oldest comrades but he lets out a sigh of a relief as soon as the door shuts behind Pieck because he knows he's kept Historia safe for now.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Not really looking to sparking a Historia/Pokko crackship or anything and personally consider this Yumikuri and slight Pokko/Pieck. (The latter is a ship right? It is now.) Thanks again for reading! School is starting soon so I won't be updating as quickly :( That latest SnK chapter was pretty wild though, right?_

 **Word Count:** _2,356_


	30. Broken Crown

**A/N:** _I'm always in awe of Historia and her arc. It's def my favorite character development arc so far in SnK (although a lot of them are pretty incredible) and I really can't wait to see the Uprising Arc animated! Please don't make me wait too long WIT Studio._

 _Spoilers for SnK manga up to ch. 68 btw._

* * *

Her father holds out the serum and, with it, the offer for her to return home. It's a chance for her to take the crown as well as the chance to become a member of the Reiss family, something he had forbidden her from being years ago. It feels like yesterday. And she's so tempted to take the serum and poke the needle into her arm, to allow the fluid to flow through her veins and transform her into the monster he so wanted her to be. But that's something the old her would do. Is that still who she is now?

Christa Lenz. A goddess, an angel, but above all, a good girl. How she despises the persona she held onto for most of her life. All of those smiles were insincere, her kindness a façade, and her actions only done because she sought martyrdom. She sought death. It was foolish to think that if she only listened to the words of her beloved sister she'd somehow prove herself as someone pure-hearted and deserving of the beautiful life that her father had so cruelly denied from her.

Frieda Reiss, oh Frieda. She meant well, Historia knew, but did she not see that telling her sister to become a perfect girl, one who was good through and through, was more cruel than kind? And Frieda, who was one of those good girls who didn't even have to struggle at being thoughtful of others, suffered in the end despite her kindness. What good is being an angel when the world is so merciless? Perhaps if Frieda had struggled against their father, denied him of his desire to take over the power of the Coordinate and become a Titan, maybe she would still be alive. But that wasn't her nature. She was doomed from the start because of her pure-heartedness. Historia doesn't hate her for it. She doesn't hate her for any of it. It's not Frieda's fault. It's their father's fault. He's a Reiss that craves the crown but is too scared to wear it himself.

Historia Reiss is not a Reiss, not in the way that the ones before her were. She's an outcast. She wasn't allowed the luxury of love or even the privilege to be who she was. She sees it in his eyes. She's not the one he wants but she's the only one who will do right now. He's too afraid to wear the broken crown even though he's the one who shattered it in the first place. She has always thought she'd be satisfied seeing her father on his knees, begging for her to come back, and yet here they are and the only thing she can think about now is how disgusting he looks as he grovels at her feet.

She doesn't want to be queen, not if her father is the one who's placing the crown on her head. She likes her crown of thorns better, a headpiece she's forged herself out of her blood and sweat and tears. It's something her father can't understand, will never understand, and she's not surprised when he cries out after she knocks the serum out of his hand and the delicate glass shatters on the ground. She almost laughs seeing him crawling to the serum; proud Rod Reiss, who had denied her years ago because of her mother's lowly status, laps up the fluid up like a dog. It's comical in a way.

Most people would be horrified seeing their father transform into a monster right before their very eyes. Historia isn't. Her father had always been a monster no matter what form he's in. This deformed Titan isn't even close to half the monster he truly is, she thinks. Why do her comrades hang back and cower at him? Are they scared of this form, a Titan that's not quite right? She's not. She's doing being scared of him. He can't hurt her anymore than he has already.

So she swoops in and makes a clean cut at the nape of his neck. It's the cleanest cut she's ever made on a Titan, either on a practice Titan in training or a real one on the field. It's the final blow, the one to erase him from this world that he so cruelly tried to keep her away from. She doesn't even feel herself fall or notice when her body hits the covered military cart. She only opens up her eyes to see herself being crowded around by people who are marveling at the person who saved their town.

Historia stands up, not even bothering to brush herself off or check the wounds she's sustained from her fall. It's her time to take her crown now, to cast aside the one her father has offered her once and for all and to wear the one she's fought for all her life.

She stands before them and raises her voice against theirs. "I am Historia Reiss," she hears herself say. "The true ruler of the Walls."

And the crowds look at her with awe and wonder, like she's the queen that she was always meant to be.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Feel free to leave me requests btw since I'm running out! Also thank you for all of the reviews/follows/favorites so far ^-^_

 **Adrinette4life:** _Yeah, that guy definitely looks like Eren! Someone on Tumblr edited his picture to have short hair and no stubble and he looked so much like Eren, haha. I also think only Eren (or at least someone in the SC who knows about the letters in the basement) would use Krueger as a name in a disguise. I'd bet good money that it's him anyway. Monthly manga updates will be the death of me rip._

 **Prompt:** _Broken Crown (Mumford and Sons)_

 **Word Count:** _861_


	31. Waiting for You

**Request:** _Hello! I really like your works :3 Can I request a Rivetra reincarnation au? Thanks in advance!_

* * *

He always calls his mother a little too early in the morning after he has these dreams. She asks him what's wrong but he never really elaborates. They're a little too vivid to be dreams and they stray in his mind so long they feel more like memories. Her voice is comforting after such dreams. They remind him of where he is now and that the visions in his sleep are just disfigured dreams turned to nightmares.

"Did you have a nightmare?" his mother asks. She's always so patient when she picks up the phone even though he calls at ungodly hours.

"It's nothing," he lies. He's never told her about the dreams he has of her wasting away in the bed with a curable illness but no money for the medicine. The Levi in the dream is always young, then again he might just be small from lack of food, and he's holding his mother's hand as she dies. He's much older now, much older than he was in the dream, so he can only assume that these visions are merely a fantasy and that none of them will ever come true. Still, he can't help feeling sick afterwards. "Did you have a good day yesterday?"

It's an odd question to ask at four in the morning but his mother answers it without hesitating or prodding him about why he's calling so early. She's used to it. "Oh, honey," his mother gushes like she has so much to tell him about her day. "Yesterday was so lovely, such a perfect day for a walk. The flowers in the park are all in bloom and they look so marvelous…"

She has such a soothing voice. He lets her ramble on and on about the park and the things she saw while on her walk – the birds, the dogs, the flowers, the sort of shit he wouldn't care about if anyone else were talking about them but they mean the world if his mother is the one speaking – and falls back to sleep again.

* * *

He wakes up with his phone next to him, his mother having hung up after she had heard his breathing slow and his snoring start probably. He feels guilty for calling her up night after night but it's the only way he can get those goddamn dreams out of his head and get back to sleep and she's kind enough to talk him to sleep every night even though he's no longer a young boy.

It's not only dreams about his mother though. Sometimes there are people he's never seen before in his life – a red-haired girl with a wide grin, a scruffy guy with messy blonde hair, a tall blond man with an unfathomable smile and his hair slicked back – but he swears they're familiar somehow. At least he knows them when he's dreaming and wakes to realize that he doesn't know them at all. He doesn't remember how long he's been having these dreams, just that they've been haunting him for a long time. He recalls knowing their names when he's asleep but they fade away as soon as he wakes, their images the only things that linger in his mind.

The girl with the ginger hair scares him the most. She looks at him with such warmth every night and when she disappears he feels a noticeable loneliness feel the room as he wakes up alone. He sees her laughing with other people he should know – a tall man with his hair tied in a bun, one with his brown hair cropped short with a point in the back, another man who has his hair styled suspiciously like Levi's but curlier and brown instead of black – and he _knows_ that laugh, that smile, that face. But he wakes and curses himself because he can't match that face to anyone he's met before.

* * *

Weekends are the worst because there's no work to occupy his mind and he finds himself pondering all of these people that he doesn't know. If he had their names, what would happen then? It's not as if they exist in real life, he thinks. Although his mother has been a frequent occurrence in similar dreams and she's very much real… It has to be a coincidence though.

Just like the girl in line at the coffee shop he frequents every weekend. She looks suspiciously like the one in his dreams. It's strange how he can recognize her. She always wears the same clothes in his dreams – white pants with a button up and knee-high boots. Sometimes she wears a green cape with a mysterious symbol, an emblem of wings emblazoned on the back. Her outfit is more modern now – a floral dress with a light cardigan over it and sandals on her feet – but her hair is still the same shade of ginger. Her way of standing is the same, the curve of her jaw, the amber of her eyes…

They've locked eyes and he turns away a little too quickly. He doesn't know why. Maybe it's because he doesn't want her to think he's a creep but he thinks it's more because he's terrified of looking at her face any longer and seeing her expression.

He hurriedly stumbles out of the coffee shop, mumbling apologies to strangers he bumps into. Once he's out the door he breaks out into a sprint. It's ridiculous, running away from a woman as small as she is, but he can't bear the thought of being face-to-face with her. He hears someone calling out his name and for a moment he thinks it must be that girl back at the coffee shop. That's impossible though because they don't know each other, at least he's sure they don't.

As much as he's scared of knowing what she thinks of him, he finds his thoughts returning to that small instant where she turns and he analyzes that microscopic instant before he can turn away to see if he can tell what she's thinking in that small moment she sees his face for a fraction of a second. Is she happy? Is she surprised? Is she scared?

It's impossible. The moment was far too fleeting for him to discern any recognizable expression and all he can do is wonder.

* * *

He doesn't return to the coffee shop the next day like he normally would. He doesn't want to risk seeing her again. It figures that he would have dreams of her instead throughout the week. They're not unpleasant though save for the hollow feeling in his chest he has upon waking.

He wonders why she's so kind to him all of the time. He's not kind in real life or his dreams and yet he always finds her with a gentle smile on her face when he turns to her. He enjoys solitude and yet her constant presence by his side is not unwelcome. She's always near and yet he doesn't find her clingy or her company stifling.

She calls him "Captain," so she must be a soldier or at least a subordinate of his. It doesn't feel like it though. Sometimes she slips and calls him by his name. He never corrects her though. He likes the way his name sounds coming from her mouth, the way it slips out so naturally. He wonders if she feels the same way when he calls her name. He means to try it out every time he wakes but he can never remember it in the morning. It's two syllables that he stretches into three, he knows. It's on the tip of his tongue every time but always slips away from him at the last second so he has to make do with the satisfaction he feels when he hears his name from her lips.

She has a certain way of making coffee. It's not too sweet or too bitter. It's just right. They can never get his order right in real life when he orders his coffee from the shop. He can't either no matter what combination of cream and sugar he tries. Maybe the reason is because it's real life, where nothing is quite as good as the things found in dreams. The taste is so familiar though and it lingers in his mouth when he wakes. How can he remember something that he only dreamed of?

Every morning before the dream ends he feels the need to tell her something. Tell her what? That he misses her, that he loves her, that he'll find her, this girl that only appears when he sleeps? But as soon as he moves his mouth to form the words the dream shatters and he finds himself alone in his bed.

They're too vivid to be just dreams, he thinks. They feel more like flashbacks, memories from a life he once lived a long time ago. Something like reincarnation, that past lives bullshit that he doesn't believe in. Stupid.

* * *

He's felt terror before, the absolute dread of what's about to come next in these nightmares of his. Why now? The memories of her so far have all been pleasant so far but now he can't help feeling absolutely terrified as he zooms through this forest. He's never seen trees so large and yet he must because he zips through the branches without thinking too much about how to dodge them. The only thought now he has on his mind is that he has to hurry, hurry, hurry.

Ah, but it's too late. He knows it when he sees the first body dangling from a tree, neck sliced open like an animal. The second body is only half a corpse lying on the grass, a streak of blood staining the ground. The third one is face down, body broken like a glass doll. And he knows the fourth body. He knows that looking at it will only crush him and he looks anyway.

She's beautiful even in death, he thinks, in a tragic way. Blood is smeared across her face, her body smashed against a tree in a way that she sits unnaturally, her eyes the same amber but hollow instead of alight with warmth he had seen before in all of his other dreams. He slows down as he nears her body and all he can think of now is how he's too late.

He wakes with an ache in his chest and his breathing heavy. He wishes for the image of her dead to be erased from his mind but it always returns whenever he closes his eyes.

"Did you have a nightmare?" his mother asks just like she always does.

Usually this is the part where he lies and says no, asking her about how her day was so he can try to forget the people he dreams about. Not this time. "I saw a girl the other day," he says after a while. He can't be speaking very loudly but his voice seems to echo around his bedroom.

"Did you? What was she like?"

"Small," he answers. "Smaller than me. Her hair was that color. Not that reddish color. Orange. Ginger, they call it?"

"That's a lovely color."

"I didn't talk to her," he confesses.

"Oh?"

"I was scared." He's a grown ass man and admitting this to his mother, admitting that he's afraid of a woman smaller than him, makes him feel like a stupid kid again.

"Why were you scared of her?"

He doesn't know, not really. Maybe it's because she haunts his dream. Maybe because he misses her even though he doesn't know her aside from nightly visits that aren't even real. Maybe it's because he really does know her, at least he used to, and he's afraid that she knows him too and doesn't remember him a fondly as he remembers her.

"Do you ever have dreams that are so real that they feel just like a memory?" he asks his mother. "They can't be real because you know they've never happened to you before but you remember every detail like you've been through all of it at one point?"

He expects his mother to answer. She always knows what to say, always has the right answer, but now there's only silence on her end.

"Mom?"

"I used to have them a lot when you were younger," she says to him. Her voice is quieter than it usually is. "They still come up every now and again although a lot less frequently now."

He's afraid to ask. If they're anything like his, he's not sure he wants her to recall them for him just so he can figure his dreams out. His mother has always been there for him though and he feels that abandoning the topic now will only cause her to worry even more about him so he finds himself hesitantly asking what happens during those dreams.

"I die," she replies, "and I leave you all alone."

It's like his dream, he realizes, the ones where he's a child and he helplessly watches her waste away into nothing. It's one of the many that he never shares with her. How can it be that they share the same one?

"I have that one too," he says, his voice a terrified whisper because he can't understand what it all means.

"Does the girl you saw die in the other dreams you have too?" she asks.

He swallows as he remembers her, the ginger-haired girl with the amber eyes crushed against a tree with her empty eyes staring out at nothing. "She does," he breathes. "What does it all mean?"

"Do dreams ever mean anything?" his mother replies and he can almost imagine that sad smile on her face. It's so rare that she doesn't have the answer to something and this is one of those occasions. "Maybe they're something left from our past lives, lives we lived but no longer remember. Maybe you're too old to believe that or maybe it's just silly. And while you shouldn't let the terror of them dictate your life or hold you back, I don't think you should forget them entirely. After all, these dreams reminded me to hold you a little closer every night and be thankful I could live a life where I don't have to leave you alone."

It's so like her to guide him in the direction she thinks is best even though she doesn't have a definitive answer for him. It makes him smile just the slightest bit. "Maybe you're right," he murmurs. "You're usually always right about things."

"Are you going to go to sleep now?" his mother asks. "You probably should. These dreams must be keeping you up at terrible hours."

"I will in a bit," he says. He's tired now and for the first time in a long time he isn't scared of shutting his eyes and letting sleep take him but he doesn't mind staying up a little to speak more with his mother. "What was your day like today?"

His mother starts on telling him about her day again, this time telling him about the vegetables that are growing in the garden, and he allows her voice to put him back to sleep.

* * *

He returns to the coffee shop the following weekend. He probably shouldn't but he scans for her face in the window as soon as the shop is in view. She isn't hard to miss with that ginger hair. He spots her even though he's still a whiles away from the shop and he finds himself breaking into a run again, but this time he's running towards her instead of away. He was too late in his dreams, too late to do and say what he really wanted to. He wouldn't let it happen this time. Not in this life.

He must have blinked because the next time he looks into the shop window she's gone. Is he too late again? He wracks his brain for where she could have gone in such a short amount of time but then turns to the entrance of the shop to see her standing there.

It's another floral dress, this time blue instead of purple, and he looks to her face to read her expression. He expects anger or surprise but instead sees that kind smile, the one that's haunted him in dreams, on her face as she looks at him. He's frozen in place because he's not sure what to do. He hasn't quite planned it out yet and part of him is still afraid but she doesn't mind closing the gap and she walks to him.

She says his name like she did before and he knows he's loved it before but he loves it more now, these two simple syllables coming from her lips, because he knows it's real. "Levi." She says it just as easily as she did in his dreams. It's like she's never stopped saying it at all.

"What are you doing here?" he asks.

"I was waiting for you," she replies.

He doesn't know why he hesitates so much to do what he really feels in those dreams or memories. He hears her words and he knows that that uncertainty from before has held him back. Maybe this is why he reaches for her, cups her face in his hands and tilts it upward so he can press his lips against hers. She tastes bitter with the all of the things they could never do and sweet with all of the time they have now to make up for it. He's never kissed her before in his dreams and so he relishes the fact that he can create a memory, a happy one to make up for all of the tragic nightmares that have haunted him for years, a beautiful memory with her.

"Petra." Two syllables that he stretches out into three because he wants her name to linger on his tongue. He leans in for another kiss and mumbles, "I was waiting for you too."

* * *

 **A/N:** _I was debating about whether or not I should have posted this here (it's a request I got from Tumblr) but I liked it so much I gave it a spot here. I will be getting to other requests soon :)_

 **the H3artfull author:** _I have a drabble series titled "Keep You Warm" full of EreMika that you can read in the meantime while you wait. (I'll probably upload the EreMika fic you requested on there once I finish writing it!)_

 **Adrinette4Life:** _Historia/Eren friendship is one of my favorites so I look forward to getting to it! Definitely wish the anime would stick to the relationships in the manga a lot more closely b/c it's partly what makes the series so enjoyable in the first place._

 **Word Count:** _3,105_


	32. But This Isn't What You Wanted

**A/N:** _Someone on Tumblr requested I write something for Jean after chapter 104, so here it is! It's been a while since I uploaded anything on here ^^"_

* * *

They're back home but the memories from that foreign land followed him back, wrapped themselves around him, weighing heavy on his mind. He wants to forget it or at least keep it locked in the back of his mind where it won't bother him. It seems like everyone else is able to do so, so why can't he? They discuss the next course of action, eat like nothing's wrong, and sleep soundly, but he can't even look at himself in the mirror.

But he's never wanted any of this. He just wanted to remain on Paradis, leave their enemies across the water. Then maybe they could find peace.

 _But isn't this what you wanted?_

It wasn't. He never wanted restless nights and haunting memories. He just wanted safety and tranquility. Was that too selfish of him to wish for?

 _It was._

But he picked up the blade to fight.

He had changed, hadn't he? He fought for peace for himself and then found himself fighting for others. He sacrificed himself, put his life on the line, so others wouldn't have to see the horrors he did.

 _But you're still the same. Selfish. Willing to sacrifice others if it gets you what you want._

Maybe when he was younger and didn't know any better. Maybe when he was still a cadet and willing to climb to the top in order to secure a position in the Military Police, away from all the terror that the others would have to live through. Maybe when he didn't realize that such a route would meaning letting those around him fall.

But not anymore. He only does what is necessary, takes to the time to understand if it's right. He hesitates to pull a gun on the enemy even when his friend's life is at stake. He used to think that it was because he was foolish, but surely it was just proof of his humanity, wasn't it?

 _Then where was your humanity when you shot that poor boy, Jean? That boy…just a child…where was your humanity then?_

The boy with wide eyes, pleading for him not to kill the target. He thought he could aim the spear in such a way that it would kill the shifter, not the boy, but he missed his mark or maybe he was going to shoot them both all along.

Casualties are a given, especially in such large-scale operations. And he'd seen innocent people die, their carcasses discarded carelessly on the side of the road, but it's different seeing a boy broken by his own hand. Was blood always that red? Was it always that messy? Were the screams always that loud?

He's whisked away before he can fully take in the scene, tugged away from his thoughts by Connie and Sasha, but the sight of it never leaves his mind. He sees the boy everywhere – alive for one minute and then dead in the blink of an eye – and he knows that it's all his fault. It doesn't matter what the others say. His finger was the one on the trigger.

 _But what is one boy in the name of peace and freedom? Years ago you wouldn't have minded safety for yourself even if others were dying. How is this any different?_

But this isn't what he wanted.

 _But isn't it?_

* * *

 **A/N:** _I wrote this yesterday and didn't realize it was his birthday. I suppose it's one heck of a birthday present, hehe. See you guys later!_

 **Word count:** _553_


	33. All the Wrong Questions

**A/N:** _For an anon who requested a fic with some Zekerets. Takes place after SnK 104._

* * *

When they arrive too late, they – the Jaw Titan and the Cart Titan – look to him as if to ask, _What do we do?_ The Armored Titan is nowhere to be found. Ah, but that's not his problem, is it? They should know what to do without his help, know how to attack and defend the way they've been trained to, so he charges forward without them and they follow him, believing that he's taking the lead. In reality, he's leaving them behind.

* * *

She's seen hell before, had even been the one to open its doors to her enemies, and yet she's still surprised to see its flames consuming her city. The infamous Ackermans, their inhuman abilities something she hadn't been able to witness fully until this moment, are already fearsome enough enemies. With the rest of their soldiers and their improved mobility gear, she knows for certain that Marley is in over its head but giving up isn't an option for them.

Pieck looks to Zeke, her comrade and commander, hoping that he will be able to stop this madness. She just needs a sign. She just needs to ask him what he needs her to do and she will do it without hesitation.

She sees him below, challenging the feared Ackerman soldier even though he had barely made it out alive years before. His arms are outstretched, inviting the enemy to fight if him if he dares, but she only realizes later what the gesture really means.

She wants to call out to him, to ask him for some sort of command, but it only takes a second and the Ackerman has slashed his nape. There wasn't even time enough for her to warn him. She wants to mourn his loss, wants to avenge his death, but a figure emerges from the nape of his Titan and disappears using gear similar to the gear the Paradis soldiers use. Shortly after, the Ackerman drops a bomb where Zeke's body should have been, the explosion obliterating any trace of him.

 _Ah, but he's escaped,_ Pieck thinks in relief, but her relief quickly turns to panic. How was he able to escape? Who had given him the gear? And why was he leaving them behind? It only takes her a second to put all the pieces together, but she fears she's too late.

"Zeke, why?" she begins to ask, but she's ambushed by soldiers wielding guns. Too quickly, the Panzer squad falls one by one. It's too much loss all at once, too much betrayal, and she roars as she carries the bodies of her dead comrades on her back.

"How dare you?" she cries. She knows she's next to useless in combat, but she's even more useless if she sits there to mourn. But as she turns to face her enemies, she knows she's useless anyway.

The pain of not knowing why this happened numbs the pain she feels as the spear is thrust into her Titan and shocks her into unconsciousness.

* * *

 _It's useless_ , Porco thinks as his Titan is thrown against the Armored Titan. He had trained so much and yet he's still useless. But he's always been useless. Hadn't he been the one always staring at the backs of others, hoping someday that he would catch up? And here he is now, lying on the ground and searching for Zeke to give him orders. No wonder he's in such a state. No wonder so many of his comrades have fallen. No wonder he's so damn useless.

He's exhausted, but he needs to get up. He barely has the energy to lift the head of his Titan, but it's enough for him to see that Eren Jaeger and the others are retreating. The enemy gunfire had ceased and now they were trying to escape in their airship. The war balloon drifts too low to the buildings, allowing the soldiers to make their way into it without requiring the aircraft to land, but there are no Marleyan warriors left to tear it down.

How can they leave so easily after the destruction that they've caused? _Monsters, all of them_ , Porco snarls.

But what would Zeke do if he were here now?

"Zeke, you'd take them down with you, wouldn't you?" Porco mutters to himself. He's not sure if he's right, but there's not enough time to think about it any further. His eyes fixated on the aircraft that's slowly drifting upward, ready to depart, Porco makes his decision. He's not letting it get away.

Snarling, seething, he rises from where he's fallen and climbs the crumbling buildings recklessly, not caring if they collapse completely. He leaps from the falling structures, reaching for their only escape. When he makes the final leap, he fears he's too far away to tear it down, but his claws are able to tear at the airship, creating a hole in its structure and he watches it fall down with him.

* * *

Zeke emerges, revealing himself on the roof of the last crumbling building. He wears the gear of a Paradis soldier. Had he perhaps stolen that off the enemy? Had he been here this whole time while the rest of them were crying for help?

"Zeke!" Porco cries out. He's not sure that he can sustain his Titan form any longer. He's used up the last bit of his energy to take down the warship. "What do we do now?"

His commander looks at him and gives him an odd look, one that Porco recalls from their childhood. It was an expression Zeke would give him after Porco had said something not quite right, like Zeke knew the correct answer but was hiding it from him. Why is he making such an expression now?

Pieck crawls from the nape of her Titan, dragging herself bloody and bruised to look up at Zeke. She's absolutely furious, Porco realizes.

"Zeke, why are you doing this?" Pieck gasps.

He gives Pieck the same look. "You're such a smart girl, Pieck," Zeke says, amused. "But even today, you're among the ones asking all the wrong questions."

Porco wants to ask what he means, but he knows Zeke will simply give him the same strange smile. He turns instead to Pieck, but a figure from the airship catches his eye instead. It's a man, his face streaked with Shifter lines that are not unlike his own. He's not Eren Jaeger though – he's someone Porco has never seen before.

"Zeke," the man calls out. He says Zeke's name with so much familiarity, but how can that be possible when he's an enemy? He's holding out his hand as if he's ready to transform. "Are you ready to leave?"

Zeke turns to look at the man and gives him a smile, a different one, one that says that out of all of the questions asked, his is the only right one.

When Zeke departs with their enemies, Porco realizes that even with all their questions, they don't have a single answer.

* * *

 **Word Count:** _1171_


	34. Slipping Away

**NOTE:** _Contains spoilers from SnK 105._

 **A/N:** _For an anon who requested hugs and kisses between EMA._

* * *

He doesn't understand why he sometimes blacks out and can't remember where he is, why there's blood on his hands. He doesn't understand why there are days he looks at his friends and they look at him like he's a stranger. He doesn't understand the thoughts that flood his mind, filling with memories and ideas that are not his but they might as well be because when he searches the depths of his mind for his own, he comes up with nothing.

But there are times when he recalls a boy from his childhood – a bright-eyed boy with eyes like the ocean – and he remembers for a brief second who he was and who he is supposed to be. He remembers the promises he had made so long ago and the promises he has yet to keep. But what he remembers the most are the two people he promised to share a future with: the boy with the ocean eyes and the girl with the scarlet scarf wrapped around her neck.

It breaks him from his eternal trance and he calls out their names, his voice broken. His voice draws the attention of his old comrades and familiar faces look at him like he's a villain. Even the ones he had been calling to look at him warily as if they don't know him anymore.

They keep their distance until Mikasa looks at him, really looks at him, and sees that he recognizes them this time.

She doesn't hesitate to break away from the others, rushing to wrap her arms around him as tightly as she did the first night she had met him. She clings to him almost desperately as if she's afraid he'll slip away from her. She's breathless, calling his name over and over as if to remind him who he really is. "Eren," she sobs. "It's you. It's really you."

Armin is more cautious, assessing Eren's state before he approaches. "Eren," he whispers, his voice trembling with disbelief. He looks at Eren as if he's a ghost, holding out a shaking hand to touch his face. "You came back."

He wants to ask where he had gone. They look as if they hadn't seen him in years, but he knows he's been with them the entire time, hasn't he? He wants to know why they cling to him so anxiously, gripping him so tightly that he can't even breathe. He wants to know who he had been if he wasn't himself before, but he can't even open his mouth to make the words.

Their voices sound so distant now and their faces become unfamiliar to him. Even with their arms wrapped around him, they feel so far away.

Once again, he slips away.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Thank you for reading ^^ I have a handful of Springles things on my Tumblr but don't really like putting shipping drabbles in this collection, so let me know if you want me to publish my Springles writings on FFnet in a separate drabble collection and I'll do so :)_

 **Word Count:** _457_


	35. Nothing Alike

**Note:** _Spoilers for SnK 105._

 **A/N:** _For someone on Tumblr who requested Gabi's reaction to finding out about Zeke and Paradis._

* * *

She thinks it should feel the same every time. It should be like when she had blown up those enemy tanks on the battlefield. Seeing the bodies blown to pieces, the bodies of people who deserved to die, made her swell with pride when she knows their demise came at her hand. Why, then, does she not feel this way now as she stares at the fallen Eldian devil that she had shot down only moments before? The other soldiers rush at her, trying to restrain her, but she fights against them, tugging her arms and legs away from them because she's desperate to see the dying soldier's last moments.

"Let go of me! Let go!" Gabi growls, kicking and shoving the soldiers aside as best as she can, but they grip her tightly by the wrist, preventing her to get any closer to their fallen comrade. She tries to see past them as best as she can and is surprised to see them mourning.

Two soldiers are wrapping bandages around the dying woman in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding. Two other men kneel close to her, their head in their hands because they know there is nothing they can do to save her. The other soldiers have a mixture of expressions on their faces – rage, grief, defeat – and somehow, they're familiar to her. It reminds her of when she had witnessed Udo being trampled by a crowd and Zofia crushed by that boulder, their bodies shattered like porcelain. She remembers the absolute rage and fury she had, the overwhelming despair she had felt at seeing her friends dead and gone in the blink of an eye.

Except this isn't the same as Zofia and Udo, Gabi thinks bitterly. Unlike this monster, Zofia and Udo didn't deserve to die. These people…they were born devils and should return to the hell which they came from.

"Gabi! Gabi!" Falco cries, clinging to her.

She had thought that his presence would be a burden to her, that he would get himself killed, but she's grateful that he had followed her after all. It gives her a chance to tear her eyes away from the dying woman and look at him instead.

"We'll be fine," she whispers to him, pretending she's braver than she actually is. In truth, she's terrified. For all the words about a glorious, blazing end she would meet, this isn't what she wanted. She wanted to battle, wanted to win victory after victory, wanted to go out in a blaze of glory but not like this. And yet it seems that an early death is to be her fate, so she grits her teeth and glares at the soldiers who stare back with cold fury in their eyes.

"Let's just throw them off the air ship," a man says, grabbing onto Falco and Gabi's heads roughly. He's ready to drag them by the hair and throw them overboard, but he looks to the squad leader – the bearded man who had been mourning his fellow soldier – for approval first. "That would take care of them."

Gabi is ready to fight them all. If they were going to throw her off, she would make sure to drag them down with her, have their bones shatter alongside hers as they hit the ground, but she doesn't have to.

The squad leader faces the wall of the air ship. "If you throw the children to their deaths…," the man says quietly, "do you think this cycle of violence and murder will end?"

There's something in the way he speaks that sends chills up Gabi's spine. It shakes her so much she doesn't even struggle as they tie her up. She just kneels on the ground, allowing them to bind her wrists together and her arms to her body.

Surprisingly, Falco speaks even though he's still shaking of fright. "What are you going to do with us?" he asks, his voice trembling.

Another man, the man with the close-shaven head who had been one of the first to rush to the woman when she had first been shot, pulls them gently to their feet. Unlike the other soldiers, he doesn't look angry, only tired and wary. "Our leaders will decide what to do with you," he tells them. He doesn't say anything more to them after that. Even as he led them up to air ship to meet the Paradis leaders, he never spoke.

Gabi can't stand the silence that surrounds them. It disgusts her. How can they mourn for their own kind like she had mourned her friends? Her friends were worthy of grief and sadness. Their loss was unnecessary, unfortunate. How dare these demons grieve for that woman in the same way? She wants to make it stop, this silence, because it makes no sense to her. They don't deserve to weep, not when it is this hell is their own fault.

As they approach the door to where the Paradis leaders are, the bearded man – the one who had been against throwing them out of the air ship – gently prods Gabi towards the door. The soft touch confuses her, enrages her, because she doesn't understand why he wouldn't just shove her roughly towards the door even after she had killed his comrade. Why doesn't he push her, shove her down, spit on her like everyone had in Liberio? Even after everything she had done, why is he treating them like this?

"Don't touch me!" Gabi hisses, jerking herself away from the man. She's reacting more violently than she should, but she doesn't want to be in the same place as these people anymore. She doesn't want to be spared by them, these heartless monsters that the world hates. She wants to hate them, wants them to give her more reasons to despise them, wants to further justify her loathing. "I'll kill you! I swear it! I'll make you die the most excruciating, painful death!"

"Gabi!" Falco whispers, alarmed at his friend's words when they're in no state to make such threats.

The man doesn't say anything to her, only raises an eyebrow and turns to the silent man who had been accompanying them. "She reminds you of him, doesn't she, Connie? That suicidal bastard." His tone is joking, but his expression is still somber.

The man named Connie says nothing. It doesn't even seem as if he heard the other man speak. He simply looks ahead, waiting for the squad leader to open the door.

"I'm _nothing_ like any of your people," Gabi spits. She looks up at the man, expecting her words to infuriate him, but he only gives her a tired and sympathetic look before opening the door, revealing the people inside.

Connie enters before them, announcing the death of the soldier – her name was Sasha, Gabi discovers – and two of the other Paradis soldiers leave almost immediately, calling out the woman's name as if screaming it loud enough will bring her back to life.

The rest remain inside, looking at the two children warily. Behind her, Falco makes a noise as if he's seen something surprising, but Gabi ignores him. She scans the room instead to search for the leader. She suspects it might be the soldier with the eyepatch, the one who comes in after they've arrived to ask the bearded man who they are, but everyone is turning to the man sitting at the side of the room. His hair is shaggy, and he's dressed in civilian clothes unlike the rest of the Paradis soldiers. He even has an Eldian band around his arm, but she doesn't recall ever seeing him in Liberio.

"Are you…Eren Jaeger?" she asks hesitantly. She had imagined that the one responsible for all of this would appear tougher, crueler. She only sees a hollow man in front of her, one that looks through her instead of at her. His vacant expression reminds her of the one she saw sometimes on her cousin and she wonders how they can be so different and yet share the same expression.

None of the others answer her. Falco tries to whisper her name, call her back away from the man, but she ignores him and steps forward.

Finally, the man sees her, but he doesn't seem to have heard her question. He simply asks, "Who is this?"

"That's Gabi," a familiar voice replies. "And the boy beside her is Falco."

It's only then that she realizes that Zeke is in the room with them. He had blended in so seamlessly with the rest of the Paradis soldiers that she hadn't even seen him at first. The sight of him shocks her into silence, but Falco is the one to ask the question she so desperately wants to scream.

"What are you doing with these people?" Falco asks. He's quiet, trembling, confused. In a way, Gabi wishes she could be just like him – weak, vulnerable, scared. "Mr. Zeke…we thought you died back there…Was this where you were the entire time? With Eren Jaeger and the rest of the Paradis soldiers?"

"Yes," the Commander simply says without hesitation.

She expected him to deny it, say that he had been kidnapped just like they had been, but to say that he's working with them…that's something she can't understand. How can he work with these monsters who have brought nothing but pain and death with them? How can he be their ally when all of them – the Eldian warriors, the young cadets, Gabi and all her friends – have been trying to prove the world that they aren't the monsters they're believed to be.

"How…how could you do this to us?" Gabi says in disbelief. He's setting her back – all of them back – for what? What could have possibly made him side with the enemy? Hasn't it been taught ever since they were young? The Paradis Eldians were cruel and heartless, monsters that shouldn't even exist. So why…?

"Because," Zeke replies, "we are not at all that different from one another."

She doesn't want to hear these words, especially not from him. He should know what they're like. They were so terrible that the whole world looked down on them. She was treated terribly just because she shared the same blood, even though she had done none nothing.

"We're not like them," she whispers fiercely, but she's more hesitant now. She doesn't say it with the same conviction she did only moments before.

"Are you sure about that, Gabi?" Zeke asks her.

She opens her mouth to say that she's sure, that she's never been so sure of anything in her life, but she remembers the soldiers mourning their fallen the same way she had mourned for her friends. She remembers going into battle and lighting the enemy tanks on fire, bringing chaos to her foes in the same way Paradis did when their soldiers dropped down onto Liberio. She remembers the same vacant expression that Eren Jaeger has right now, the same one she's seen her cousin wear so many times.

But it's what she remembers last that frightens her the most. It's the face of the woman she had shot down, but in this particular memory she's alive and sitting on the top of a building looking down on Gabi. Her gun is pointed at Gabi, ready to shoot. Just when Gabi thinks the woman will pull the trigger, the soldier lowers her weapon and retreats, allowing Gabi to go free.

The realization hurts her head and she crumples to the floor, tears beginning to leak from her eyes. She wants to say that those are all just mistakes. That they're all monsters, that she isn't a part of this, that she and the rest of her friends never deserved any of this, but she can only sob because she's beginning to realize that none of that is true. If that's all been a lie, then is there anything in her life that had been true?

She hears Falco in the distance calling her name. He's kneeling down next to her, trying to get close even though his arms are still tied behind his back. It doesn't matter that he can't comfort her anyway. Nothing he can say can make any of this go away.

She thought that she wanted to be the one to end all of this. Now she only wants this all to end.

* * *

 **A/N:** _As always, thank you for reading and reviewing ^^ I have a few more drabbles about 105 to write..._

 **Word Count:** _2091_


	36. Save You

**Note:** _Contains spoilers for SnK 105/manga._

 **A/N:** _Someone asked for a fic where Falco doesn't reach Gabi in time._

* * *

It used to be a game. They would race each other to the top of the hill and whoever arrived first could lord it over the rest of them. There were times where he would win, sometimes even Udo or even Zofia, but it was usually Gabi who made it to the top first. Back then it was just a game. Now it's a test to see who was worthy of inheriting the power of a Titan and Gabi won every time.

Falco becomes used to chasing her shadow. He pumps his arms and legs, hoping to catch up to her, but always finds too far away from her in the end. By the time he's made it to the top of the hill, Gabi is there with a triumphant smirk on her face.

Every time he collapses once he's made it to the top, his lungs bursting and desperate for air. He looks at Gabi, smug and happy that she's defeated him once again, and he vows that someday he'll catch up to her. He just needs to be fast enough.

* * *

"You know you'll never be as fast as me," Gabi hums happily. Her strength and endurance tests are impressive, especially for a girl her age, but it's not the final assessment. He still has time to catch up. "You should give up, Falco."

But he can't. He can't compete with Udo or Zofia. While they may not have the same strengths that Gabi has, they have other abilities that have pretty much solidified their inheritance of the Jaw and Cart Titan. If he can't inherit the Armored Titan, he has no chance of protecting Gabi at all.

"Never," Falco replies fiercely.

Perhaps he couldn't surpass her now, but he'll do it soon enough. He'll become faster and stronger and beat her someday soon.

* * *

The day he beats her at racing, she spits at the ground at his feet, a sullen look on her face. He doesn't even care about her sour expression or that his lungs hurt and his muscles ache. He just grins widely, proud to have finally surpassed her after spending so many years behind her shadow.

"It's only just this one time," Gabi huffs, still breathing heavily after their run. "It doesn't mean anything."

It means nothing to her, but he knows this little victory is a sign that he's one step closer to saving her.

* * *

He's seen what the Titan's power has done to those who have inherited it. He's seen the Warriors come home from battle – battered, bloody, bruised – and watched them return to the battlefield again the next day. He's seen them all – Commander Jaeger's vacant stares into something far away, Mr. Galliard and Ms. Pieck being carried home because their bodies had been worn out, and Vice Commander Braun's lonely form hunched over in the corner of the room because he prefers the company of his shadow more than the presence of others who can never understand him – and he decides that this is not the fate that Gabi will suffer.

"I'll save Gabi," he tells Vice Commander Braun. "I will inherit the Armored Titan."

The voice of the young boy seems to snap the Warrior out from his eternal daze and something flickers in his eyes, something like hope. "You will be the one to save her?" Mr. Braun asks quietly.

"I…I can try," Falco says, faltering under the intense gaze of the man.

He takes Falco violently by the shoulders, gripping onto the child so hard that he's sure to leave bruises. "It isn't enough to try," the Warrior growls. He's usually so quiet, so far away, but now he is present and clinging to Falco because this child is the only one left he can rely on. "You have to be the one to take the Armored Titan from me. You're the only one who can do it."

There's a lump of doubt in the back of his throat, but he swallows it down. He can't be uncertain of his ability to do this, not when Gabi's life is on the line. He just needs to do everything in his ability to make it happen.

Looking up at the broken man, Falco stares back at him, a fire in his eyes. "I will save her," he promises.

* * *

He remembers the promise he made as he watches Gabi fly up to the sky, determined to get onto the air ship. He remembers the promise as he runs onto her, clinging onto the body of a dead man just so that she will not be alone, so that she will have someone to protect her, when she finally meets their enemies. He remembers the promise as he clambers onto the air ship just in time to hear a gunshot and look up to see Gabi with a surprised look on her face while the Paridis soldiers stare in shock at their fallen comrade. And he remembers the promise as he runs to her, desperate to get her away from the soldiers and their angry guns, only to reach out too late because he wasn't fast enough.

The loud crack of a gun rattles his ears and he watches as Gabi crumples to the ground, her blood spilling across the floor and painting it red. When he reaches out to touch her, wake her from this nightmare, his hands become stained as well.

"Gabi," Falco says, his voice trembling. Warriors shouldn't cry, shouldn't shed tears in front of their enemies, shouldn't leave themselves vulnerable, but he can't stop the tears from falling. "Gabi…we need to…get up…"

He looks helplessly at the enemies that surround them. Some soldiers point their guns at them, but a bearded man holds up a hand to stop them. He's the only one to take a step closer, the only one who doesn't look on edge. He looks exhausted, wary, like he's seen this all happen before. Falco thinks maybe the man understands how he feels right now.

"I…I couldn't save her," Falco whispers, holding desperately onto Gabi's limp hand.

"We never can," the man replies quietly. "We can't save anyone."

* * *

 **A/N:** _Thank you again for reading and reviewing! I'll be sure to write something about the Jaegerbros at some point ^^ They have a rather interesting relationship~_

 **Word Count:** _1028_


	37. Bang Bang

**A/N:** _Someone on Tumblr requested a fic where Sasha's a daycare worker and Gabi's an unruly child she has to take care of. It was fun and sweet to write ^^_

 _I also installed_ grammarly _recently, but I think I'm too reliant on these spell-check/grammar systems lately ^^"_

* * *

"Bang bang!" yells a child, poking a gun to Sasha's leg. The child pulls the trigger to her toy gun, but nothing comes out, the young girl having run out of ammo for her water gun a long time ago.

This is the part where Sasha pretends to fall down dead, but she's frankly a little too tired to play along. Sasha had put the young girl, Gabi Braun, to sleep along with the other preschoolers a long time ago, but it seems that the child had crawled away and grabbed her water gun while Sasha had her back turned.

Sasha kneels down so that she's face-to-face with Gabi, smiling at the little girl. "Gabi," Sasha says, repressing the urge to rip the water gun out of the girl's tiny hands. "Aren't you tired? Everyone's taking a nap. Maybe you should take a nap too so you're not tired when everyone wakes up!"

"Not tired!" the toddler squeaks, jabbing the gun into Sasha's knee. While the kid is cute, she's incredibly energetic. It means she's enthusiastic about trying new things – class activities, snacks none of the other children never tried before, and group games – but she's a pain in the ass to put to sleep.

"Aw, but sleep is so nice – hey!" Sasha nearly gets herself whacked in the face by Gabi's toy gun. To avoid getting hit by the plastic toy, she puts a hand gently on the water gun and lowers it. "Maybe put this down, Gabi? You could hurt someone if you swing it around like that."

"Naptime is boring!" Gabi says, wrestling the gun away from Sasha and waving it in the air again. She runs a short distance away from Sasha before turning around and pointing the gun at her head. "Put your hands up!"

"Ahaha, I think we've played that enough for now," Sasha laughs weakly. She looks at Jean for help, but he only shrugs at her from the counter he's leaning on. She probably never should have expected help from him anyway. Even though he's her partner in this daycare, he only really likes to spend time with the quieter children. ("Gabi likes you better anyway," Jean says even though he makes absolutely no effort in trying to get along with the unruly child.)

"You're on your own, Al Capone," he mouths, pretending to look after the sleeping children in the case that Gabi's shenanigans woke any of them up. Sasha knows he's going back to texting his girlfriend on his phone in a second though.

Sasha sighs. It looks like she'll have to deal with Gabi herself just like she always does. She stands up and walks to her bag, her sudden disinterest causing Gabi to follow her curiously and forget that she was trying to shoot down her preschool teacher. Sasha pretends not to notice that the girl is peering into her bag. There's only candy and snacks in there anyway.

With a smile, Sasha pulls out a gun of her own; it's a bright red with a clear compartment filled with colorful jelly beans. She turns around and lowers it to Gabi's eye-level, letting the girl take a closer look. "Check it out! Pretty cool, right?" Sasha asks her.

Gabi's eyes are wide as saucers. "What kind of gun is this?" she asks, her own gun clattering to the floor, forgotten.

"A candy gun!" Sasha says happily. "It shoots out candy. Like this!" She turns the gun to her mouth and pulls the trigger, allowing the gun to gently dispense a single jellybean into her mouth. She had originally bought the toy to annoy Jean. They had seen it in a store while shopping for preschool supplies and he had said it was the dumbest thing he had ever seen, so of course she had to buy it. Not only was it a fun way to eat her candy, she also discovered that her kids found it entertaining and she occasionally takes it out to get children to settle down.

"Do it again," Gabi demands. She stares at Sasha very intently, determined to understand how Sasha had managed to obtain a gun that could shoot out candy. The girl tugs at Sasha's jeans, telling her to kneel so that Gabi can observe everything more closely.

"Okay," Sasha laughs, squatting so that Gabi can take a closer look. Again, she points the gun into her mouth and it drops another jellybean into her mouth. After she closes her mouth, Sasha smiles at Gabi, happy that the girl had finally stopped jumping around and making a racket. At the very least she's not going to wake up the other children.

Gabi holds out her hand. "Give it to me," she tells Sasha. Her eyes are glued to the gun. "I want it."

"Er, I can't really give it to you," Sasha laughs. "But I can…give you some candy too. Is that okay?"

For a moment Gabi looks unhappy but she thinks about it for a second and decides that candy and no gun is better than no candy and no gun. "Fine," Gabi nods. "But you have to shoot it into my mouth like you just did!"

"On one condition," Sasha says, holding up a finger. She taps Gabi on the nose. "You have to go to sleep. I'll let you play for a little bit outside, but you have to go to nap like everyone else afterward."

Gabi stands there, assessing the choice presented to her, and finally agrees to it. "Fine!" she says. "Now give me my candy!" She opens her mouth wide for the candy, looking so silly that Sasha has to stop herself from laughing out loud.

Using one hand to cup Gabi's face gently and the other to point the candy gun in the little girl's mouth, Sasha pulls the trigger and a candy lands on the girl's tongue, making her flinch a little bit.

Gabi closes her mouth after that, sucking on the candy quite intensely. "It's s'mores flavored!" she cries with delight.

"Shh!" Sasha hushes her, pressing a finger to her mouth to remind Gabi that they need to be quiet.

For once, Gabi actually listens to her and clamps both of her hands to her mouth, nodding with a serious expression on her face. When Sasha points to the playground outside, Gabi nods and trots to go play outside.

"You do realize that giving her candy was a bad idea, right?" Jean asks, walking towards Sasha who's leaning against the doorframe. He taps on her candy gun and then points towards his mouth, opening it so that she can give him some jellybeans as well.

Sasha snorts and thinks about making a snide remark about how he thought the toy was a stupid purchase, but she instead lets him have the candy anyway. When he grimaces after tasting the flavor ("Ugh, black licorice," he says.), she grins.

"It's fine. She's going to have that little sugar high and then come crashing down, right?" Sasha says. It'd probably be more effective if she fed Gabi even more candy, but she doesn't think Reiner would appreciate if he found out that Sasha was just filling Gabi up like a piñata every time the kids needed to take a fifteen-minute nap.

Jean raises an eyebrow. "And you know that you need to deal with her while she's having that sugar high, right?"

Suddenly there's a crash and Sasha turns just in time to see Gabi lying on the ground after tumbling down the slide. For a second, she's panicked, but the girl immediately jumps back up and tries again to climb up the slide (in precisely the way that Jean and Sasha had repeatedly told all the kids _not_ to climb the slide). Once again, she comes tumbling down, landing with a thud and cackling with joy.

"Ah, shit," Sasha mumbles as she runs over to Gabi. Maybe that candy gun was a stupid idea after all.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Thank you again for your kind words always! It makes writing so much better for me ^^_

 **Word Count:** _1330_


	38. Used

**A/N:** _Someone requested Zeke/Levi/Ackerman interaction post-105 :)_

* * *

It's been so long since she's been in the dungeon. Wasn't it only five years ago that she was held in one of these cells herself? She never thought she'd return, especially not of her own will, but here she is again.

The sound of her steps echoes down the hall as she walks. She's determined to walk straight to her destination without straying, but one particular cell holds her back. There's a man inside, a man she would have once turned back to look at, but she knows that even if she stopped to speak with him, he would look at her with that unfamiliar expression that she hates. Her knuckles have turned white from gripping onto the cell bars and she lets go, remembering that she has somewhere to be and that that man wouldn't miss her anyway.

When she arrives, she sees that Captain Levi is still inside questioning the prisoner. She doesn't even glance at the captive who sits chained on the floor across from them. She knows if she does, she won't be able to restrain herself. Instead, she keeps her eyes steady on her captain who stands there with an unsatisfied expression.

"You've been questioning him for a while," Mikasa says to the Captain.

"It's less of an interrogation and more like torture," the prisoner answers. Despite being holed up in the dark for days, he speaks as though he hasn't been locked away, as if he's not partially responsible that the whole entire world is after them.

She glances at Zeke for a brief second before returning her gaze to Captain Levi, who looks at the other man in absolute disgust. "But he doesn't have a scratch on him," Mikasa observes.

"I'm saving him for later," Levi replies.

It seems so uncharacteristic of him to not lay even a finger on Zeke, but Zeke reminds her, "I heal. Don't think he restrained himself."

They both ignore him.

"Did you get anything out of him?" Mikasa asks.

"Just the usual," Levi says.

All they had was the letter that Eren had written and the words of the children that had managed to board the airship. Getting words out of Eren is useless now. He's distant and quiet like he wasn't before. He's just like his brother, who sits silently in this cell now with an amused expression on his face. Even though they're the ones who have chained Zeke up, he acts like he's the one with the upper hand.

"We should just get rid of him then," Mikasa mutters. How she wishes that they could do that. Just being in the same place as him makes her skin crawl.

"I've tried that," Levi says, scoffing. "Hanji says we need him though. As much as they hate to admit it. If it were only up to me, I would have ended him a long time ago." He narrows his eyes at Zeke, but the man doesn't even flinch under the Captain's piercing glare.

"It's rude to speak about me as if I'm not in the room," Zeke says simply. Mikasa hates the conversational tone he takes; he acts like they're casual acquaintances even though the entire island would have been fine if they had never seen him again. When he took off that day in Shiganshina, he should have left for good.

"You never say anything useful anyway, so it's not as if it matters," Levi says to him.

"Levi, you're rude as always. I thought you would have warmed up to me by now after spending so much time together down here," Zeke says, but he's not looking at Levi. His attention is turned towards Mikasa. She dislikes his intense stare; it dares her to look at him, to approach him, to unleash all her unsaid feelings towards him. "But what about you, Mikasa? Did you not come here to speak with me? If you wanted to speak with your captain, you could have waited outside instead of coming down here."

"I've changed my mind…your words are useless anyway, aren't they?" She turns away from him, knowing that he's trying to get a reaction from her.

Hasn't he always been like this? Strategic, smart, manipulative. He has the ability to read people and situations, assessing them and determining what to do next. She doesn't want to be one of the people he observes because she knows he'll end up using her in the end. That's how he got to Eren. That's how they've ended up in this mess.

"Go back upstairs, Ackerman," Levi says, giving her a backward glance before returning his attention to Zeke. "If you want any more updates about the prisoner, I'll include it in the report for this week's meeting with Commander Zoe."

She's eager to leave, but she hopes that her expression doesn't show it. Somehow revealing anything to Zeke feels dangerous. She keeps her expression neutral and salutes to the Captain, trying to leave as soon as possible, but Zeke's voice calls her back.

"Tell me, Mikasa," Zeke asks before she has a chance to even open the cell. "Do you dislike me for what I did to your brother?"

"You, shut up," Levi growls at Zeke. He looks carefully at Mikasa though, gauging her reaction. His look is a gentle warning: Don't interact. Just ignore him.

She doesn't leave though. Her hand stays on the iron bars of the cell, unsure whether to leave or stay. Zeke takes this as an opportunity to continue their conversation.

"You can blame me, but just know that I never made him do anything he didn't want to do," Zeke tells her. When she turns around, he's smiling at her as if she's a child that doesn't know anything. "There were times that he would insist that this was the right thing to do. And you know how persistent he is."

She whirls around, ready to break him in every way she can. He could heal himself over again, so she needn't feel guilty about destroying him. He'll be the same after a few hours. It would take only a minute and feel so satisfying, she thinks, but when she swings her fist, someone holds her back.

She's livid when she discovers it's her own captain. He wants this as much as she does, wants to see this bastard broken and bleeding on the floor, so why would he restrain her?

" _Let go of me_ ," she hisses at him, eyes blazing.

"He's not worth it," Levi warns her. He doesn't let go until her arm falls slack at her side.

Zeke acts as if she doesn't want to beat the shit out of him. He continues talking like nothing's happening. "Ah, but maybe it's not that you hate me for using him? Rather, it's that I took your most precious person away from you?" Zeke suggests. There's a smirk on his face. "Or maybe it's not me that you're mad at after all? Isn't it Eren you're mad at? He used you. And I'm just the poor man you've redirected your anger at."

All she sees is red, the blood of innocent people that she never dreamed that they would be responsible for. The people that Eren had so carelessly thought of as collateral damage, the bodies of those that she couldn't help. She never wanted to be a part of this. She never wanted to be dragged into this. And she hates that Zeke knows this.

"You're the one who manipulated him into doing this!" Mikasa growls. She lunges at him, but the Captain holds her back once more, his grip on her even tighter than the last time. She attempts to break free from him, but he holds her back firmly. He barks orders at her, telling her to calm down, but she can't hear him at all.

He leans back against the wall. "Do you know what he told me at the end? He told me to trust him because he knew that you would come to save him," Zeke says. "He said that you would come for him. That if it came down to it, you would die for him."

There's a deafening silence after her fist hits his face. Blood drips from her hand and Zeke slumps over, his blood dripping onto the stone floor. He raises his head to watch her lift her fist once more, but the smirk on his face makes her stop mid-swing. Instead, she lets her hand fall and turns away, leaving the way she should have done before. She could beat him all she wants. She could kill him even, but it wouldn't satisfy her. She should have listened to Levi.

"I thought you were holding her back," she hears Zeke say.

"My hand slipped," Levi answers, his reply so quiet that she almost doesn't hear.

She doesn't leave immediately though. She stops at the cell she had hesitated at before, laying her bloody hand on the iron bars. She looks at the empty shell of the man she used to know, hiding in the shadows of his cell, and thinks that Zeke was right and everything Eren had told him was true. In the end, she had come for him, had come to save him, and after everything, she'd still die for him.

* * *

 **A/N:** _I think I have just a MikaSasha and AruMika to write after this as well as a Jaegerbros drabble. Please let me know if you guys would like anything ^^ Also when the next chapter comes out next month, feel free to drop a request :)_

 _I was thinking of posting my other drabbles from Tumblr onto ffnet although I wanted to avoid putting them into this collection because I didn't want to mix up my shipping drabbles with my general ones. It would probably be a collection for EreAni and Jeankasa (separately) as well as a separate collection full of rarepairs. Thoughts?_

 **Word Count:** _1555_


	39. Little Monster

**A/N:** _Someone wanted more Sasha and Gabi in Daycare AU, so I delivered. They are just too cute!_

* * *

It's not often that she has to call in the parents or guardians of her students – preschoolers can be unruly now and again, but she's found that you could give them a cookie and read them a book and they'll go right to sleep – but she finds that it's better to have weekly meetings with Gabi Braun because of the crazy antics she gets up to. Sasha would much rather prefer to talk to Gabi's actual parents, but her parents are oftentimes MIA, leaving Sasha to talk with Reiner, Gabi's much older cousin and one of Sasha's old high school classmates.

"Her parents couldn't make it again?" Sasha asks, but it's less of a question and more of a statement of fact. She's sent numerous letters – both handwritten and through the internet – to Mr. And Mrs. Braun, but she's always been shrugged off by then. She's beginning to think that maybe they don't really exist, like the Boogie Man or the Loch Ness Monster.

"Nope, but you get to see me again!" Reiner says cheerfully. His cousin Gabi runs in like a bullet, dashing around the room and knocking things over gleefully. It's always so strange how energetic and playful she is even if the room is empty. It seems that Reiner is used to the destruction though because he only looks at Gabi affectionately and says to Sasha, "So what's up with her this week?"

Sasha sighs and pulls out a chair for Reiner before sitting across from him. She steeples her fingers together, something she only does when she's incredibly frustrated. Taking a deep breath, she says, "Reiner, Gabi's been biting everyone."

He raises his eyebrows. "Biting everything? I thought she was out of her teething phase a long time ago," he says.

"No, not everything," Sasha says. God, sometimes talking to Reiner about these things was more frustrating than talking to a room full of preschoolers. She takes another breath and looks at him seriously, hoping that he won't simply brush this off as a joke like he usually does. "I'm saying that she bites _everyone._ She bit two kids yesterday and the day before that she almost bit off Jean's finger! And you know how little he gets along with her already."

Instead of looking concerned even a little, Reiner looks amused. "Well, I bet Jean deserved it anyway. You know how he gets sometimes." He smirks, but it does little to make Sasha feel any better.

"No, no, this is not okay," Sasha says. She hates that she's using her lecturing voice on a grown man, but sometimes Reiner can be such a child. She rubs her temples and sighs. "I just…why is she suddenly biting everyone?" Sasha ignores the clattering of colored pencils falling on the ground behind her and instead fixates her glare onto Reiner.

"Gee, I don't know," Reiner shrugs. He scratches the back of his neck as he tries to think of the reason why Gabi could possibly be acting this way. "I guess she has been rather bite-y lately – she's bitten me once or twice lately – but I don't think that's abnormal for a child, right? Maybe she's hungry or something. You let them eat snacks, right?"

"Yes," Sasha says through gritted teeth.

"Well then I can't think of anything else that would make her act this way," Reiner says. He's already packing up to leave, not at all concerned that tomorrow Sasha will continue to deal with this problem. She shouldn't be at all disappointed. It's not like he's been any help any of the previous times either. "Come on, Gabi, let's go!"

From out of the bathroom, a small figure wrapped entirely in toilet paper toddles over to where Reiner is, arms outstretched. She has such a smug expression on her face and it's hard to be angry at her even if she did take a few days' supply of toilet paper and wrap it around her body.

"Reiner, guess what I am!" Gabi says giddily. She raises her arms so that he can pick her up.

"You're a mummy, aren't you?" Reiner laughs, picking her up and swinging her around. The extra toilet paper that dangles from her limbs swirl around her like streamers. "And what an impressive mummy you are!"

"I'm not a mummy!" Gabi says indignantly. She swings a fist that nearly hits Reiner in the face, but she misses. "I'm a zombie like in The Walking Dead!"

The mention of the violent apocalyptic zombie show startles Sasha and she stands up immediately, her chair screeching against the tiled floor. "Did she just say 'Walking Dead'?" she asks incredulously. She looks from Reiner to Gabi, not knowing who to address next. She picks Gabi in the end, knowing that the child will be less likely to lie to her. Trying to compose herself, Sasha takes a deep breath and asks calmly, "Gabi, do you watch The Walking Dead with cousin Reiner?"

"Yup! We watch it every weekend," Gabi says happily, much to the panic of the Reiner that holds her. "It's so cool! The zombies eat everyone!"

"Reiner, you shouldn't be watching that sort of stuff with Gabi, you know that," Sasha says. Sometimes she can't believe he graduated from high school, but, no, she was there when they called his name and even watched him walk across the stage to shake hands with the principal and receive his diploma. Whoever let that happen clearly made a big mistake.

"Aw, why not? It's a fun show, and it's not like she's killing anyone by biting them," Reiner says. He reaches out to pat Gabi affectionately on the head, but she snatches his hand and chomps on hit hard. Sasha can tell that it's taking all his restraint not to cry out and he instead gives Sasha a strained smile. "See? Still alive. I'm sure you'll figure this all out in the end, Sasha."

"Reiner, you're bleeding."

"See you next time, Sasha!" Reiner calls, ignoring her and walking out the door with his little zombified cousin.

Sasha sighs. It really does look like she'll have to solve this on her own. Again. Why does she even bother meeting with Reiner if it always ends up like this?

* * *

Jean leans against the doorway, watching the kids as they ran around the playground. He looks over lazily at Sasha, who was keeping a close eye on Gabi.

"So, did you figure out a way to make her stop eating everyone?" he asks her. He's been avoiding Gabi completely, leaving Sasha to take care of the child all on her own. Not that that's any different from usual, to be honest.

Sasha gives him a smug grin. "I have an idea."

Just as Gabi zips past, chasing after a panicked Falco who was desperate to get away from her open jaws, Sasha bends down and catches her. Although Gabi struggles to get out of Sasha's grip, Sasha's had too much experience with wiggling children to let her get away and sits down with Gabi wriggling around in her lap.

"Finally, gotcha!" Sasha said, grinning widely at the little girl in her clutches.

"Not if I eat you first!" Gabi yells, she opens and closes her mouth. She might think it looks like a fearsome shark of some sort, but it only reminds Sasha of a cute little guppy.

"Wait!" Sasha cries, waving an exaggerated hand at Gabi. Her large hand gestures are always enchanting to children for some reason and it's enough to get Gabi to sit still for a second. "I know a monster even more fearsome than zombies! I have faced them, trained with them, and mastered their technique!"

Even some of the other children are watching now, gathering around Sasha to hear the rest of her story.

Gabi's eyes are as round as saucers and she leans in closely, curious to hear more about this monster. "What is it? What does it do?"

Sasha looks at all of them solemnly. "They were called tickle monsters and they could defeat zombies by the hundreds. Thousands even," Sasha tells them. She lowers her voice, making them lean in even more. "And their secret technique…tickling!"

She tickles Gabi lightly under the chin and the child bursts into a fit of giggles. She wiggles desperately, trying to escape from Sasha's tickle attack, but it takes her a while to finally free herself. Once she finally does, she takes a few steps back, her face red from all of the laughing.

Raising a hand, she looks at all of the other children around her and cries, "Hurry, tickle Miss Sasha!"

The little fingers of the children attempt to get a giggle out of Sasha – they reach for her under her chin, her armpits, her stomach – but none of them get out even a little laugh. Even Jean is a little baffled.

"I'm immune," Sasha explains, winking at Jean. Then she turns to the children. "But do you know who isn't…?" She nods her head ever so subtly at Jean.

It takes him a while to notice that all the kids are slowly turning on him and when he does figure out what's going on, it's too late. By the time he begins running, the children tackle him to the ground and tickle them as hard as they can. He's dissolved in a puddle of laughter in a matter of seconds.

The rest of the week they have to deal with all of the kids chasing after each other and trying to tickle each other to death, but it's a lot better than having them bite each other. Jean, of course, disagrees, but she'll work on that later.

* * *

 **A/N:** _I think it's very fun to write Jean and Sasha together whether it's platonic or romantic. Writing Reiner was very cool too!_

 _I might be away for a while because my finals are soon and I have a lot of things I need to wrap up ^^" I'm excited about SnK 106 though!_

 **Word Count:** _1617_


	40. Midnight Drinking

**A/N:** _I've never written for_ Springlestein _before, so this was a fun request from someone on Tumblr. I think I did a rather good job and I'm pleased the result ^^_

* * *

Jean never thought that he'd become a squad leader. Hell, he never thought he'd become part of the Scouting Legion at all, but here he is. He's sure that the past him would be ecstatic about becoming a superior officer even if it was part of a group that he detested. The best of the worst, eh? Ah, but he's found that it's lonely being at the top. He understands now why Captain Ackerman wears that perpetual frown, why Commander Zoe doesn't smile nearly as much as they did before, why this large room feels so empty even when it's filled with comrades during meetings and even lonelier when they leave him. Of course, staring up at his ceiling in the dark doesn't help his loneliness either. Maybe that's the price one must pay to lead.

Someone on the outside fumbles with the doorknob and for a second Jean thinks that they're stumbling into the wrong room. That's impossible though. The commanding officers sleep in a wing separate from the other soldiers, and Jean doubts that the other squad leaders and superiors would ever make such a mistake when they've lived here for so long. It can only be some mischievous soldiers breaking into his room, perhaps hoping to steal some liquor from his dresser drawer or believing it to be empty so they can get into some…shenanigans. (The latter tends to happen even more often than the former, Jean finds.)

Sighing, Jean gets up from his bed, walking towards the door. He's ready to slam it into the (probably) drunken soldiers' faces after pointing them to a different door. If they're particularly obstinate about coming in here, there's a big chance he'll send them unknowingly to Captain Ackerman's room where they'll no doubt suffer from the biggest fright in their life. Instructor Shadis has nothing on the worn out and grumpy captain.

"You've got the wrong room," Jean begins, but the intruders stumble into his room without hesitation, even flickering off the light as soon as he turns it on to get a better look at them. Their arms wrap themselves quickly around his neck and he's not surprised that they stink of alcohol. He is, however, surprised that he knows these two.

"Jean!" Connie cries. He swings a bottle of brandy in his other hand, bringing it to his lips to take another swig. "Ah, Jean!"

Sasha is on Jean's other side, her grip around him so tight that he's afraid she'll choke him to death in her drunken stupor. Grinning wickedly with her face far too close to his for comfort, she says, "Jean, Jean! If it's your room, then we've got the right room after all!"

Beside him, Connie mumbles something incoherent in agreement. He shoves the bottle in Jean's face, encouraging him to take a swig of it himself, but Jean refuses. If he wanted to get drunk, he would have cleaned out the entire bottle at the bottom of his dresser drawer earlier this evening. No, he wants to rest, but it seems like Connie and Sasha have other plans in mind.

"I don't care if you guys get drunk, but does it have to be in my room?" Jean asks. He's practically carrying them to his bed because they can hardly walk. He never would have thought that his strength training would be used to hold up two drunkards, but here he is now. He doesn't even lay them down on his bed carefully, just lets them fall onto the mattress with a hard thud.

"It's not like you were doing anything in here," Sasha says while Connie rolls onto his stomach. Unlike Connie, Sasha doesn't groan in pain. She must be too intoxicated to feel anything. "You don't have anyone over, although that's not a surprise."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jean asks. He doesn't care to hear the answer. When Sasha and Connie get drunk like this, they tend to spout out a bunch of nonsense. He should probably just leave them be, but he lingers before sitting at the edge of his bed. It'd be a pain if any of them made a mess on his bed and Connie tends to vomit when he drinks too much.

Connie and Sasha share a look with each other before bursting into an irritating fit of giggles. It's Connie who finally speaks. "Because you're a virginnnn," Connie slurs in a melody that's probably out of tune.

"And you don't have the balls to ask Mikasa out," Sasha adds, stretching out so that her limbs are strewn all over the place. An arm is stretched out and her hand nearly hits Connie in the face, but her old friend doesn't seem to mind at all. Part of her body looks like it's about to tumble off the edge of the bed and Jean has to roll her so that she's safely back onto the mattress.

"I don't see what that has to do with anything," Jean mumbles, but he can feel the heat rise to his face. At least his friends are too drunk to notice and it's too drunk for them to see even if they did. He's about to go back to his seat at the foot of the bed, but Connie and Sasha pull him down so that he's lying between them, squished with no room to move. Normally, he would think this was unpleasant. Now, however, he finds this place oddly nice and comforting, but… "Did you guys really need to drink this much?"

"Yes," Sasha and Connie say in unison.

"If you're not drinking this hard, are you even really celebrating?" Connie asks him. He uses the brandy bottle to point at Jean, spilling some of the liquor clumsily onto his shirt. "Ah, shit."

"What's there to celebrate?" Jean asks, frowning at Connie who is furiously scrubbing at his shirt and making no progress at all in making the stain disappear. Jean makes a mental note to check his sheets in the morning. He's sure the Captain will notice if they're stained with alcohol even if he covers the stain with blankets.

"Vacation!" Sasha shouts. Jean's sure her voice is loud enough to wake the people in the rooms next door, so he quickly hushes her, but she shoves his hand away. "We're going to a new place we haven't been before! Adventure awaits us! Isn't that exciting?"

It'd be more exciting if the reason for their departure wasn't to ambush Liberio and retrieve the other Titan shifters, but Jean doesn't want to be reminded of such things right now. He'd rather they take a vacation (which is a pretty light term to describe the military invasion), a real vacation, to the beach or some other place, but when has anything ever gone the way he wanted?

"I guess we might as well celebrate," Jean mutters under his breath. He makes the mistake of not saying it quietly enough because Sasha and Connie cheer again, and he has to pinch them on their sides to make them quiet down once more.

Connie begins to tip the bottle towards Jean again, chanting, "Drink! Drink! Drink!" However, he miscalculates just how far he needs to tip it. Connie had never been very smart and things like gravity and the laws of physics escape him, so it's no surprise when the brandy sloshes quickly out of the bottle and onto Jean's shirt instead of his mouth. And, you know, it also doesn't help that Connie doesn't tip the bottle anywhere near Jean's mouth.

While Jean is unamused, Sasha laughs so hard that Jean's afraid she might break. "Nice one, doofus," she cackles.

"I was just doing my best," Connie mumbled. He shakes the nearly empty bottle at Sasha, almost smacking Jean in the face with it. "You try pouring a drink into someone's mouth while lying down!"

Jean hastily snatches the bottle away from Connie, not wanting either of them to try anything. He takes a quick swig of it, tipping it up towards his mouth and dropping it back down before any alcohol can pass through his lips. Hopefully, both Connie and Sasha are far too drunk to notice that though.

"I drank it, so are you guys happy now?" Jean asks. Reaching across Connie, Jean sets the brandy bottle on his desk and falls back down on his mattress. Ah, this bed really is cramped. They really should give the military officers bigger mattresses, Jean thinks.

His two friends cheer again, wrapping their arms around him in an unnecessary hug. He wants to tell them to stop. It's uncomfortable enough that he has to lie in his brandy-soaked shirt, but their arms around them make him feel even more cramped and awkward. He can't bring himself to tell them to stop though.

When was the last time they had been together like this? He remembers their feasts on the beach, the first time they had tried Marleyan cuisine and Sasha had passed out from eating too much. There was that time when they had first returned from Shiganshina and Connie had convinced him to sneak into Sasha's hospital room together so she wouldn't be lonely at night. Back when they were only trainees, he remembers eating in the dining hall and thinking that those two were the most annoying pair in the training squad, but now he thinks life would be unbearable without them. When is the next time they'll be able to be like this, carefree and happy and together if only for a little while?

He can hear their breathing grow heavy and knows that they'll fall asleep soon.

"Next time just tell me if you want to drink," Jean tells them. His voice seems to echo across the room, but it doesn't make him feel lonely like it usually does. "I'll get you a bottle so you don't have to keep stealing from Military Police cabinets."

"How do you know we stole it?" Connie asks at the same time that Sasha laughs and says, "Those assholes left the cabinet wide open anyway."

The two look at Jean who only sighs and they cackle again.

"The fun's all in stealing it anyway. It makes it taste better," Sasha says to Jean. He vaguely recalls her saying the same thing when he told her to quit stealing meat from the storage sheds back when they were only soldiers. Old habits really do die hard.

Connie pokes him on the side. "Come with us next time," he says sleepily, eyelids drooping. "Sasha can give you tips about not getting caught. She's the best."

"I believe it," Jean mumbles. He pats Connie on the head, hoping that the guy goes to sleep soon. Connie has two alternate modes when he's this drunk: a sloppy chatterbox or a sleeping log. Jean hopes that it's the latter tonight because they all have a meeting tomorrow and he's sure it's better that they arrive hungover instead of hungover and dead tired.

"Aw, did you say I was the best?" Sasha coos, snuggling much too hard against Jean. Her hair tickles his face and he has to push it out of the way to keep from sneezing.

"I did agree to it because it's true. You really are the best," he says, and he really means it this time.

He typically only agrees with them when they're drunk because it shuts them up faster and they usually talk about nonsensical things, but he can't deny that Sasha really is the best. A thief, a jokester, a chatterbox at the worst times, but she's reliable, quick with her wits, and has unmatchable intuition. Connie, too, has his good sides even if he isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. He's thoughtful, perceptive, and loyal. How on earth had Jean managed his life before meeting them?

"You guys are both the best," he hears himself saying. He feels silly for saying something so sentimental even though he's sure he's only talking to the ceiling now because he can hear Connie breathing so heavily beside him. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

There's a soft snort beside him and he's surprised to see that Sasha's awake. "So cheesy," she says, but she squeezes him tightly.

"I thought you were sleeping," he hisses at her, surprised and embarrassed to be caught saying such things in front of her. How dare she know how much he appreciates them both! "It's the liquor making me say things."

"Sure, sure," she laughs. They lie there for a while – Connie asleep while Sasha and Jean remain awake – and Sasha whispers, "But I know you didn't drink a drop of that. I'm not stupid, you know."

No, she's not. And it's really not a terrible thing that she knows, right?

He turns to her, wanting to tell her not to let Connie know what he said but she's already fallen asleep with her head resting on his shoulder. She won't remember this in the morning.

Ah, that's fine, Jean decides. He thinks about telling Connie when he wakes but decides against it. He's sure they know anyway.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Thanks for reading! I just graduated from college this last weekend and everything was so hectic, but I have a lot of time to write a lot now. It's been going great so far! I've also been watching anime. Right now I'm catching up on Darling in the Franxx. It is pretty fun! It reminds me of Evangelion and Shinsekai Yori in a way._

 **Word Count:** _2195_


	41. A Night on the Beach

**A/N:** _Graduated but still tired, haha. I can't believe it's almost time for SnK 107 to drop!_

* * *

After their long journey – the battles they've fought, the friends they've lost, and the tragedies they've experienced – they've finally made it to their destination. The beach is everything Armin thought it would be and more.

It's so much colder on the seaside than he thought it would be. He shivers every time the breeze blows by, cold and salty just like the ocean. The sand sticks to his feet, but it washes away if he stands in the waters. He's content to just stand and marvel at the vast beauty of the ocean, how it stretches so endlessly to the horizon with no clear end in sight, but he also likes to see his friends splash about in the water, smiling for the first time in a long time. Their superiors, Commander Zoe and Captain Ackerman, aren't nearly as interested in fooling around in the sand and water; While Commander Zoe is curious about observing every unfamiliar thing and recording it in their notebook, Captain Ackerman doesn't want to touch a single thing because it's strange to him. Still, Armin believes that both share a feeling of brief happiness because they're all closer to reaching the end than they ever thought they'd get.

Laying in the tent that night, Armin thinks that they're all exhausted after their first real vacation. Now it's time for their first real rest, but he should have been suspicious of how quickly Eren seems to have fallen asleep. Usually, Eren is a lot more talkative before he knocks out, but Armin had foolishly believed that he had been tired after such a long day on the beach. He really should have known better.

Just when Armin feels his eyelids grow heavy and his mind slip into unconsciousness, he feels a hand grab him by the shoulder and shake him roughly.

"Hey, Armin, wake up," Eren says. He shakes him up even harder, already trying to prop Armin up even though his friend is almost drifting off to sleep. "We're going to the beach."

"The beach?" Armin says, confused. He tries to wrestle his way from his friend's grip, but it's useless. Eren has always been stronger than him. Armin allows himself to be shaken like a ragdoll. It doesn't help him feel more awake. It just makes him feel like a fish being shaken about. "We just went there today and we're going back tomorrow, Eren."

"And tonight," Eren says. He's given up on trying to wake Armin up and is now trying to drag him out of the tent by the legs. He's strong, but he's not that strong. "Jean and Connie want to see the beach at night, so let's go!"

The tent flap hits Armin in the face, finally waking him up. Spluttering, Armin kicks Eren in the shin, making Eren cry out briefly before he remembers he needs to be quiet lest he wakes others up. "Ah, sorry," Armin mumbles, although he doesn't really mean it. If Eren didn't want to get hurt, he should have been less rough.

Two figures pop up from the side of the tent. Their silhouettes look vaguely familiar, although they could really be anyone since Armin's only half awake

"Hey, Armin. Are you coming with us?" one of the figures asks. It's Connie without a doubt. He looks down at where Armin is sprawled on the ground, not even paying attention to the wounded Eren rubbing his shin right next to him.

"He's coming," Eren says. He finally stands up, although he limps exaggeratedly with every step he takes. After all the training they've done to get into the military in the first place, Armin doubts something like that could even leave a mark on him.

"Stop being a wuss, Eren," Jean snorts. He looks at Armin and then prods him with his foot. "Come on then. If we keep talking here, we'll wake everyone up."

Armin sighs. He doesn't want to go, but he figures that he has to because it's unlikely that Eren, Jean, and Connie will leave him alone. Why all the boys have to have a beach night under everyone's noses, Armin has no idea, but at least he won't be dragged about if he goes with them willingly.

Getting up, Armin grumbles, "I guess I'm going."

* * *

They hike to a little cliff overlooking the ocean. It's a place that Armin didn't have time to explore during the day. While he doesn't know what it looks like when the sun is shining on it, the moonlight that reflects off the dark blue waters takes Armin's breath away. Sitting still save for the waves, the ocean looks like a blanket of black silk beneath them. Armin doesn't think he's ever seen anything look so serene yet foreboding.

He continues to contemplate how peaceful it looks below when he hears footsteps growing louder and faster behind him. When he turns around, a shadow of someone speeds past him, screaming widely before they jump off the cliff and hit the water.

There is an overwhelming sense of dread that fills the pit of his stomach. It seems so high up, but there's no telling how far the cliff is from the water, especially in the darkness. Panicked, Armin rushes to the edge, but he realizes that he could slip and fall and looking down makes him nauseous. He can't possibly fall in after whoever had jumped in but running down and making sure they're okay might take too long.

The person finally emerges from the water, bursting out from the surface with a large laugh that Armin recognizes belongs to Eren. "Come on in, guys, it's fucking great!" he shouts.

Armin almost wants to shout at Eren for doing something so reckless, but Jean discards his shirt and pants, throwing off his shoes without a thought, before running off the edge of the cliff and diving straight into the water. There's a loud splash once he hits the surface, and Armin holds his breath until he sees Jean rise out of the water, wiping the salt water from his face.

"Do they have to do that?" Armin mutters. He looks at Connie, who is grinning down at the two who have already dived but isn't making any moves to follow them. "Don't you think it's kind of dangerous. It's so high!"

"Ah, we've fought Titans," Connie says, waving his hand as if writing off Connie's concerns as foolish. "If we can survive this, we can survive a little jump into the water."

Down below, he can hear Jean and Eren arguing about whose dive was better.

"You're as graceful as a horse, you know that?" Eren snorts. There's a splash of water and Armin knows that they'll probably murder each other soon if someone doesn't stop them.

"As if you're any better!" Jean says, splashing Eren back. He grins when Eren splutters back at him, his mouth filled with the salty seawater. "It's a surprise you've made it this far when you're as clumsy as they come, Eren."

"Cowabunga, assholes!" Connie cries as he jumps down to join them. Out of the three of them, Connie is probably the least graceful out of them all, simply curling into the ball and creating an unbelievably large splash one he enters the water. Once he comes out, everyone's laughing at him except for Armin, who looks down at them from the cliff with a disapproving expression.

Seeing that Armin hasn't yet joined them, Eren looks up to where his friend is and waves at him. "Come on, Armin! It's not that actually all that far down and the water's fantastic!"

The rest of them cheer for Armin as well, encouraging him to take a daring dive, but the height makes Armin feel like throwing up and he shakes his head, taking the long way down from the cliff so he doesn't have to keep looking down. He ignores their jeers and boos as he climbs down. They can be as stupid and reckless as they want, but he sure as hell isn't going to jump off a cliff just because everyone else did.

* * *

"What are they arguing about now?" Armin asks. He rests against a rock, tired of floating and swimming but not wanting to leave the water. He likes the weightlessness that he feels when he's in the ocean. It's peaceful, but it's not as peaceful as he'd like it to be when he can hear Eren and Jean arguing in the background.

"Skinny dipping or something," Connie says. He's floating about in the water, his arms and legs splayed out like he's a starfish. He changes his position so he's upright now, turning to get a better look at Eren and Jean in the distance. "Jean's been kind of obsessed with it ever since Yelena mentioned swimming naked is something you do in other countries."

"You go swimming naked?" Armin asks, scandalized. He can't imagine doing something like that. It just seems so…wild. Is that really something Eren and Jean are interested in?

They listen to Jean and Eren argue back and forth, their agitated voices so familiar after all the time they've all spent together, but it's Connie who finally gets them to stop arguing.

"What does it matter?" Connie shouts. He's treading in the water, using one hand to keep himself afloat while the other one is cupped over his mouth. "None of you guys is very impressive!"

Armin doesn't quite understand why Jean and Eren are so embarrassed. When he turns to Connie, waiting for an explanation, all Connie does is shake his head as if to tell Armin that it's not worth knowing. Armin still tries to remember it in case he ever needs to use it in the future though.

Jean and Eren end up racing each other to see who can swim out the furthest, which Armin likes much better because the sounds of the water splashing about, and their heavy breathing is far more pleasant to listen to than their constant bickering. However, he should have known that they would be too stupid to save any energy to swim back to the shore and they end up having to call Armin and Connie to help them back.

* * *

Later, Armin finds Connie digging around on the beach for something. Buried treasure, perhaps? He finds that he's not completely wrong after he asks Connie what he's looking for. It turns out that he's searching for a watermelon he had buried in the sand earlier that day.

"Why'd you bury it in the sand?" Armin asks.

"To hide it from Sasha," Connie says, grunting as he digs around a particularly large rock that's not quite big enough to be called a boulder. He wipes off the sweat from his forehead and pauses to look at Armin. "I love that girl, but she eats the whole damn thing before everyone can even get a slice. I figured that if I hid one, we could all have a chance to enjoy it without worrying about whether or not we'll have seconds."

Armin would offer to help, but it doesn't look like Connie has made much progress. There are dozens of holes that are an impressive size and depth, but no watermelon in sight. Connie really does have a lot of patience for this or else he probably just really wants that watermelon.

Jean and Eren come up from behind them, and Jean rests an arm around Armin. It seems that he's finally made a full recovery from that swimming contest he had with Eren. He raises his eyebrows as he watches Connie dig, but he doesn't seem particularly surprised. "Is he still looking for that watermelon he hid from Sasha?" he asks Armin. He looks back at Connie and says, "I told you to mark it with something."

"If I used a marker, Sasha would find it," Connie mutters. "Thanks for your advice, but you clearly haven't thought about it that much because that's a terrible idea."

"Well then," Eren says slowly, "how are _you_ going to find it?"

"I think I'd remember where I buried a watermelon," Connie says, but his laugh is forced and the many holes he's already dug say otherwise. It's quite pitiful actually.

No one makes a move to help him though. While having four people search for something would definitely be better than having just one, the idea of digging around for a fruit in the middle of the sand isn't exactly appealing so they all leave him with an awkward wave and a "Good luck!"

Connie soon collapses from exhaustion, surrounded by many holes and no watermelon.

* * *

They all decide to take one last swim before going back to camp. While they can always take another dip in the ocean with the rest of the Scouting Legion in the morning, it won't be the same as right now. Now, the quiet and darkness of the night make it feel as if time is frozen if even for a little bit. It's so strange that Armin can find peace in this ocean when their enemies sit on the other side.

While treading on the water, Armin realizes that the ocean is quite deep, especially the further out he swims. He's always thought about exploring across the world but has never really considered the unknown mysteries that hide beneath the waves of the ocean. It's another adventure, something else to explore, and the thought of it excites him. He probably won't have any time to explore it soon, but he dives into the ocean anyway, looking around even though he knows it's far too dark to see anything.

After diving and coming up quite a few times, Armin emerges one last time, spluttering because he's accidentally swallowed some water. What is more irritating is that the seawater is very uncomfortable in his eyes, and he finds that he needs to constantly rub at them to make them feel somewhat normal again.

"You alright, Armin?" Connie asks. He pauses whatever foolish tackling game he's playing with Jean and Eren. The two don't follow, instead wrestling each other in the water and attempting to drown the other. "You keep rubbing at your eyes."

"Yeah, it's just…the saltwater agitating my eyes," Armin mumbles, rubbing at them again. He's not sure if he feels better or worse at this point. "It happens a lot when I'm swimming, but even more when I'm diving."

Connie nods. "I've been kind of having that problem too although I don't think it's too bad. It'd be nice if we could wear something over our eyes to keep the water out. Like those things Commander Zoe wears, you know? It's to help them see, but it also keeps it from branches from scratching their eyes out when they're zipping around on their 3DMG. Have you noticed?"

The mechanisms of Armin's mind are already whirring and he's thinking of what kind of modifications he'd have to make in order to create such a contraption. The seeing goggles have curved lenses, meant to correct the abnormal curvature of near-sighted or far-sighted eyes, but those could easily be replaced by flat pieces of glass. It would just have to be sturdy enough to withstand water, but they would otherwise be worn similarly to the goggles that Commander Zoe and others wear during missions just as Connie had said.

"Something like…like swim goggles," Armin says suddenly.

"Yeah, exactly!" Connie says, pointing at Armin. His face is amazed like it usually is whenever Armin proposes a new type of device. He looks at Armin like he's a genius. It's like he has no idea he was the one who had really come up with the idea in the first place. Armin wants to tell him that he had really done nothing but think of the name, but Connie is already swimming over to where Jean and Eren are, sharing Armin's new invention with them.

* * *

While everyone else is already heading back to camp, Armin is taking one last look over the cliff they had hiked to when they had first come to the beach. Even though they had spent nearly all night swimming in that vast ocean, there isn't anything to show for it. The sea looks as peaceful and mysterious as it did when they had first arrived. How beautiful it is, thinks Armin.

"Armin, hurry up! They're going to wake up soon!" Eren yells from the bottom of the cliff.

Armin begins to walk back, telling Eren that he's coming so that his friend needn't yell at him anymore, but he turns around, looking back at the ocean. It's as if his legs are moving on their own, his steps slow at first before speeding to a sprint, and he finds himself running towards the end of the cliff. He doesn't feel terrified though. It's exhilarating, the feeling of the wind blowing through his hair and feeling the blood pumping through his veins. He doesn't stop when he reaches the edge of the cliff. He jumps, flying through the air, and for a moment he's terrified, but he's excited at the same time. He crashes into the ocean, feels it swallow him up, but it returns him to the surface and he takes a big breath as soon as he comes up.

His friends cheer as he swims to shore and Armin grins back at them, glad that he had come for their beach trip after all.

* * *

 **A/N:** _I don't write them all hanging out and having fun as much as I want to but it's always a good time when I do, haha._

 **Word Count:** _2923_


	42. A Day on the Beach

**A/N:** _Someone requested the 104th girls on the beach post time skip ^^ It can be considered a companion piece to the previous chapter :)_

* * *

She's been far too busy to keep up with her old friends aside from the weekly military updates she receives. Although they've promised to go out for dinner occasionally, it seems that something always comes up as if the universe is conspiring to keep them apart. It's usually because she has an unexpected meeting to go to or one of their expeditions gets in the way. Either way, it's not as if they're trying to avoid each other. It's just how they ended up. Besides, spending time apart from each other doesn't mean they're not friends anymore, Historia thinks. It just means that they're busy.

It seems that they think differently though because Sasha and Mikasa burst into her office one day with determined looks on their faces. Well, Sasha bursts in with a determined look on her face. Mikasa looks exhausted from trying to hold the other girl back. Behind them are Historia's guards, exasperated looks on their faces.

"Your Highness, we tried to tell them you were busy attending to important documents, but they wouldn't listen to us," a soldier says desperately. His face is red, blushing furiously because two trained royal guards couldn't hold back two young girls.

Historia wants to tell them not to worry. After all, these girls are some of the best soldiers she knows – graduating in the top ten of their class, surviving a handful of Scouting Legion expeditions, and they were one of the few to come back from Shiganshina. Really, it's not like her guards stood a chance.

"I told you guys, we're _friends_ ," Sasha says. She clutches onto Mikasa's arm as if using her as a shield and shoots a glare at the guards. When she turns back to look at Historia, her face spreads into a warm smile. "Hey, Historia! We came to see you!"

"If you're busy, we can just leave," Mikasa says quickly.

"No, no, it's fine. I'm glad you came," Historia says to them, standing up from her chair. She makes a motion for the guards to leave and shuts the door behind them. Gesturing for Mikasa and Sasha to sit down, Historia then returns to her seat. Her hands folded on her desk, she beams at her two old friends. While she had been fine not seeing them for so long, she has to admit that it's great to be reunited with them. "What did you come to see me about?"

"Well, it's not really…" Mikasa hesitates. She looks over at Sasha helplessly as if to tell Historia that none of this was her idea. "Sasha was thinking…"

"We should go to the beach!" Sasha says excitedly. She looks so thrilled that she might fall out of her seat. "You've been holed up in this castle of yours that you haven't had time to visit the ocean. Of course, we have, but it's a shame you haven't. It's really beautiful, Historia."

Historia smiles politely at Sasha and then looks at Mikasa who shakes her head subtly, letting Historia know that it's okay to decline. "Well, I have quite a busy schedule, you know," she says apologetically to Sasha. She glances at the stack of papers on her desk that she has yet to go through and approve. While it's not imperative that she get them done right away, she does like the idea of getting rid of this pile of papers on her desk. It just looks messy sitting there. "Can't we reschedule for another day?"

"No," Sasha says firmly. Beside her, Mikasa groans. Sasha, however, ignores her and continues. "We're always rescheduling, and it's been ages since we've seen each other! What better way to reconnect than a beach day? You really have to see the ocean, Historia. It's unlike anything that we have in the Walls. Right, Mikasa?"

Mikasa's lips are pressed together in a firm line but she eventually gives a reluctant nod. "It really is beautiful," she says. "And it would be nice to see you again, Historia."

Historia looks thoughtfully again the stack of papers that sits on her desk. She could always do them another day, and it's not like she can't reschedule the meetings she has with the nobles and other military officers tonight. She's been doing a lot of work lately, so it'd be nice to catch up with her friends after so long. After all, she's already pushed off dinners and lunches with them for long enough.

"Alright, I'll go," Historia says. She gets up from her chair, throwing on her coat and walking out the door. "Let's go."

"Now?" Mikasa says, surprised.

"Now." Historia walks past her guards who are looking at her in alarm, wondering why she's leaving the palace when she has meetings to attend and other royal responsibilities.

"Yes! Let's go! Let's go!" Sasha cheers. She drags Mikasa with her and throws her arms around Historia once they catch up. "Oh, it's so nice to finally be back together again!"

Historia smiles. It's been so long since they were all in one place at the same time, but she can't believe she could stand it all that time. She's missed this – Sasha's arms around them as they head off together and Mikasa's grumblings that hide a small smile – and she has to agree. It really is nice to be back together again.

* * *

Out of the members of the Scouting Legion, Historia is the only one to never have stepped foot out of the Walls. Well, she had resigned from the military when she had been crowned queen, but it was one of her regrets that she had not been able to venture out to the ocean with her friends. She forgot how exhilarating it was to ride out past the gates, to see how endless the sky was as it stretched above her. There is something beautifully free about the land beyond the Walls, nothing to restrict them or hold them back, but it's nothing compared to the ocean.

"So?" Sasha says after they've dismounted from their horses. She looks at Historia, tilting her head to see the Queen's expression better. "What do you think?"

"I think…I think it's beautiful," Historia breathed.

She takes it all in, the beauty of the ocean. It's so much more vast than she thought it would be and it's unlike any body of water she's seen before. It glitters as it reflects the sun that shines on its crystal blue waters. Historia ventures there hesitantly, squealing with surprise when the cool waves wash over her legs. It makes her wonder how deep the ocean is, the secrets it hides and whether it holds any answers to the many questions she has regarding the future. But that can wait for another day. She wants to focus on the present and not have to worry about the things that have yet to come.

She turns back to look at Mikasa and Sasha who stand on the golden sand grinning back at her. Using a hand to shield her eyes from the sun, Historia grins back at them and asks, "Why did it take you so long to drag me out here?"

Sasha laughs and runs over to tackle Historia with a hug. The force of it nearly knocks Historia off her feet and into the water. "You were always so busy, Historia!"

Mikasa follows behind them, arms folded but a shy smile on her face. "Do you like it here?" she asks Historia.

"Oh yes," Historia says in reply. "I love it."

* * *

Mikasa floats on the surface of the water, her arms and legs extended like one of those starfish that Sasha had shown Historia earlier. She drifts so effortlessly on to the water's surface, and she looks so peaceful with her eyes closed as she floats atop the water. The waves could wash her away and it looks like she wouldn't mind it at all.

"So you just…float?" Historia says, looking uncertain. She doesn't think she can do what Mikasa's doing. How can she when Mikasa makes it look so natural? Floating in the water, just laying there, should be impossible when it takes so much energy to swim from one place to another.

"Yeah! It's easy! You can just float on your back so you don't have to worry about breathing or whatever," Sasha tells her. She does it briefly for a second, making an example of herself, and then puts herself upright. "It's easy!"

Historia looks down at the clear water. It's shallow, only going up to her chest, but she's still nervous about suspending herself in the middle of the ocean. What if she sinks? What if her tiny frame isn't made to drift atop the water because she's too stiff? What if she can't do it?

"I'm not sure about this…" she says. Her gaze returns to Mikasa who is still relaxing in the water, not paying them any attention.

Sasha follows her gaze to Mikasa and she sighs. "Don't look at her! It's all she ever does when we go to the beach, so she can do it easily," Sasha says, but she can see that the furrow in Historia's brow hasn't disappeared, so she swims over to Mikasa and flips her over. "Historia can't practice if you're here floating around like that!"

Spluttering, Mikasa rises from the water, clearly miffed that Sasha had overturned her while she was minding her own busy. "You didn't have to flip me over!" Mikasa says, splashing at Sasha who squeals when the cold seawater splashes over her head.

"You could have helped!" Sasha laughs, splashing Mikasa back.

It's strange to see the usually reserved Mikasa having so much fun, but maybe that's the effect that the beach has on people.

Historia doesn't want to interrupt them when they're clearly enjoying themselves splashing about so she practices by herself, but she always feels herself floating downwards whenever she attempts to float. She tries a couple of times before looking back at Sasha and Mikasa, who are still busy trying to splash each other with water.

"Hey, you guys," Historia says, walking over to them. "I was wondering…"

A large wave of water that Mikasa had tried to aim at Sasha hits Historia, filling her mouth with salty seawater. While Sasha stands there laughing at Mikasa's terrible aim, Mikasa rushes to Historia's side, apologizing and asking if the Queen is okay.

Spluttering, Historia coughs out all the water from her lungs, clutching onto Mikasa's shoulder so that she doesn't slip and fall backward. When she can finally speak, she looks over at Mikasa and she nearly laughs at how concerned she looks. Opening her mouth to assure Mikasa that she's absolutely fine, she decides against it and instead throws her hands into the water, splashing Mikasa instead.

This makes Sasha laugh even harder and when Mikasa finally recovers, she grins and comes for the both of them.

Historia doesn't learn how to float that day, but she does find out that she and Sasha make quite a team against Mikasa.

* * *

Towards the end of the day, Sasha disappears to go somewhere. Historia doesn't think much of it. Sasha has always been the type to run off, abandoning the group only to come back and show everyone something interesting she's found – or stolen. She thinks that it would be the case this time too, but she's surprised when she walks to a part of the shore that's filled with nothing but holes. At first, Historia believes that it must be some sort of sea creature that she's never heard of that dug up these holes, but she sees Sasha determinedly digging away at one of the holes like her life depends on it.

"It's better that you don't ask," Mikasa advises, but Historia asks anyway.

"What are you doing?"

Sasha looks up from her work, wiping the sweat off her forehead. Although she's clearly tired from all the work she's done, Sasha grins widely. "Digging for watermelons."

This answer only confuses Historia more.

"You're digging for watermelons?" she repeats. "Watermelons don't grow underground…do they?"

Mikasa only sighs beside her.

"They don't, you're right!" Sasha says, but she holds up a hand as if telling Historia to wait for the real surprise. "I saw Connie bury one in the sand the last time we went to the beach, but he dug a lot of holes after that. I found the first one and figured that if he dug so many holes, that means he buried a lot more, right?"

Sasha looks so pleased with herself that Historia doesn't have the heart to tell her that Connie had just forgotten where he had buried the first watermelon. It's probably why she ends up helping Sasha dig for watermelons in the end while Mikasa gives them a disapproving look. The search, of course, is fruitless.

* * *

Historia hisses as she peels her dried skin off. The skin underneath looks so angry and red. Sunburnt is what Sasha calls it. It makes Historia wonder why she didn't suffer from it back when she was always outdoors during training or on expeditions. Then again, she didn't have so much skin exposed.

"How come this doesn't happen to you two?" she complains, looking enviously at Mikasa and Sasha.

Mikasa shrugs. "Something that has to do with genes, Hanji said. They're working on something that you could put on your skin so that the sunburns wouldn't be so bad. If it makes you feel any better, Armin gets burned pretty badly too."

"Yeah, he looked like a cherry the last time he was out here," Sasha says. She drapes a jacket over Historia to shield her shoulders and torso from getting burned any worse.

"I'm sure that's funny, but I don't have a sense of humor right now," Historia says glumly.

"Oh, it'll feel better tomorrow," Sasha assures her.

"Don't pick at it so much, you'll irritate it more," Mikasa says to Historia.

The three search for some shade to escape the sun's rays and eventually stumble into the shade of a small cavern that faces the ocean. The rocks are cool beneath their feet and Historia breathes a contented sigh, finally able to enjoy herself once again now that she's burning beneath the sun.

Small waves roll in and out of the cave and Sasha dips her toes in the shallow water, giggling because it tickles her skin. Around them, there are shells and all sorts of small sea creatures. Mikasa even picks one up – a little crab with a peculiar looking shell on its back – and lets it crawl around her hands. It's such a beautiful place, this beach, and she can only think that it's a shame she was so busy that she hadn't had a chance to visit the seaside until now.

"This would be a good place to take the children sometime," Historia says suddenly. She thinks it would be good to take them out now that the Titans no longer roam outside the Walls. Soon, there will be a generation that will know nothing about the Titans except for tales their parents tell them. They'll be able to roam the world and see beautiful places like this beach.

"Are you always thinking about work?" Sasha says, pouting. She pokes Historia in the cheek.

Mikasa gives Sasha a look. "She's been busy, you know that," Mikasa says to Sasha. She puts a gentle hand on Historia's shoulder and smiles at her. "We're glad you came with us today."

"Yeah," Historia laughs. She should take vacations more often. She never knew they could be so relaxing. "I'm glad I came too."

* * *

 **A/N:** _I just finished watching Anna Karenina today. (The 2012 version with Keira Knightley. It was quite crazy but the aesthetics were amazing!)_

 **Word Count:** _2613_


	43. Cheers

**A/N:** _Someone requested platonic MikaSasha ^^_

* * *

At the end of the day, all Mikasa wants to do is rest. Today of all days, it is what she wants the most. She thought she would get it too but just as she is about to drift off to sleep, an intruder slips into her bed, wrapping an arm around her waist.

"Mikasa," the trespasser whispers into her ear in a singsong voice. Brown hair falls onto her pillow, tickling her cheek.

"What is it, Sasha?" Mikasa sighs. She's surprised that there's not a hint of alcohol on her friend's breath. "Why aren't you going to sleep?"

Sasha sits up, lifting to show that she's brought a bottle of vodka that Mikasa is sure she's stolen from the liquor cabinets meant for the top military officials. ("They have all the good liquor anyway," Sasha has told her many times.) Wiggling her eyebrows, Sasha says, "Want a little midnight drink before the trip tomorrow?"

"And wake up with a hangover? No, thank you," Mikasa says. She turns away from Sasha, yanking the blankets off her friend and using them to cover her own head.

"Boring," Sasha sighs.

Mikasa thinks that now Sasha will retreat to her own bed, allowing Mikasa to get the rest she's been looking forward to, but Sasha just rolls over in her bed to light the candle on the nightstand and flops back down. So much for sleeping.

Knowing that Sasha will continue to moan and sigh unless she agrees to a drink, forbidding her of any rest at all, Mikasa sits up and looks at Sasha warily.

Even though Mikasa hasn't said a word, Sasha immediately sits up after her with a grin that is more luminous than the candlelight illuminating the room. Hurriedly digging into her pockets to retrieve the shot glasses she had probably also stolen, Sasha places them on the nightstand as well before unscrewing the top of the vodka bottle.

"Ah, that's more like it!" Sasha says excitedly. She pours it perfectly into the little glasses and offers one to Mikasa. "Drink, drink!"

Mikasa takes the glass but doesn't drink from it just yet. "Do we always have to drink in my bed? What if we spill something?"

"Oh no, no, no," Sasha says, wagging a finger at Mikasa. "I would never spill something as good as this. How could I?"

It's true though. Mikasa has noticed that Sasha never wastes anything she eats. She's never made a spill, dropped a crumb, or left the dinner table without her plate licked clean.

"Couldn't you have done this with Connie or Jean? They're your friends too, aren't they?"

Sasha shakes her head so much that she's jostling the bed, but she still doesn't spill anything. "I love those boys, but it's not the same if it's not you. You're my best friend, you know. We've been friends since our trainee days. Roommates too. You should be flattered!"

She is, but she'll never tell Sasha that.

While it's true that she had been Sasha's roommate ever since they had first met each other during military training, Mikasa had never really thought about it until it was mentioned. The truth is that she hadn't even liked the idea of rooming with someone like Sasha. Half the time she was so tired that she would roll into Mikasa's bed on accident and not bother to go to her own bed even after Mikasa had shoved her onto the floor, opting to just sleep in the hardwood instead of going through the trouble of climbing onto her bunk. In time, Mikasa had become used to Sasha taking up the whole bed even though her own bed will do just fine and wasn't surprised when Sasha would show up with food and drinks she had stolen from the food storage sheds. Perhaps she should have kicked Sasha more forcibly out of her bed during her nightly visits, but she had been so tired and before long she had grown accustomed to it. Besides, it turned out to be rather comforting to have someone giggling and gossiping beside her in bed, reminding her that there are still reasons to smile in the world.

"Then I guess we should drink up. Not the whole bottle though. I still need to function tomorrow," Mikasa says, raising her glass.

"Of course," Sasha says happily even though Mikasa's sure that her friend will drink far more than she should tonight. Lifting her glass so that it clinks against Mikasa's, Sasha grins widely and says, "Cheers."

"Cheers," Mikasa says before taking a drink.

* * *

The funny thing about moments like those is that Mikasa never really thinks about them until the person is gone. Back then, she had never considered that it might be the last time they shared a drink together. Back then, she didn't know that she would never be able to sleep in that bed again. Whenever she does try to slip under the covers and fall asleep, she finds that it's too cold no matter how many blankets she throws on top of herself.

She finds the cool gravestone, Sasha's name carved into it, far more comforting even though her friends have said she hasn't eaten or slept properly ever since the funeral. That's a lie. She hasn't slept properly since hearing that her friend had passed that day on the airship just when she thought everyone was safe.

At least here she can get some rest even if all she does now is sit in front of Sasha's headstone and wish that she had never been shot.

This time she brings a bottle of gin with her that she bought from the store on her way here.

Pouring it into a glass, one for her and one for Sasha, Mikasa lifts up her glass in a toast that no one will ever hear.

"To the best friend I've ever had," Mikasa says to the sky. "Cheers."

She drinks it all in one shot, wincing at the taste. It's terrible. She should have stolen it instead. It always tastes better that way.

* * *

 **A/N:** _I just rewatched Jurassic Park this morning. What an amazing movie! I'm so glad they put it on Netflix!_

 **Word Count:** _1014_


	44. Heartless

**A/N:** _Someone requested Floch coping with loss post-Marley battle ^^_

* * *

Everyone turns when they see him arrive for the memorial services for those that had died in Liberio. Out of those being remembered today, only Sasha's body had been recovered. Back when they were still fighting Titans, only body parts could be recovered. An entire corpse was rare. Usually, whole squads would be lost, but this expedition – their most ambitious to date – only suffered eight losses in total. It's a huge improvement, but it's not something Floch will mention here.

No one greets him as he takes his place alongside them. It's not because they are too busy grieving. It is because they don't believe he belongs here. He can see it plainly on their faces without them having to open their mouths. That's fine. It isn't his goal to become friends with them anyway. After their history, he doubts they can be anything more than comrades fighting against the same enemy.

Even as friends and family members step forward to offer words and prayers to the ones that have passed, he feels their eyes on him. Out of everyone who has come today, only Floch remains standing still because he has no words to offer. How can he when he knows they are useless? He can cry all he wants and speak endlessly to the heavens, but nothing he does will ever bring back the dead.

They must think him a monster to stand there like a statue, not even shedding a single tear. Of course, they would. They all believe him to be inhuman because he was the one to suggest throwing the child prisoners off the airship back in Liberio. Apparently, housing the prisoners and allowing to live is a more appropriate punishment. How stupid.

It is ridiculous to think that he doesn't understand pain and loss the way they do just because he was never a part of their group the way they were back in the days of the uprising when the Walls were still used as a cage and the world outside was still unknown to them. It doesn't matter that he was never close friends with those who had passed. He had fought alongside them. He had dined with them, talked with them, and battled the same battles as them. Had he not also earned a right to grieve for them just the same as everybody else?

His hand tightens into a fist at his side as he remembers that day so many years ago when the Scouting Legion was decimated by the Beast Titan. He had been the only survivor that day, him and the Commander. He wanted to cry then because everything was hopeless. There was no chance of victory and he would surely die there with the Commander at his side like all the other unfortunate soldiers, but he swallowed his tears and scaled up the Wall, carrying the Commander with him. But even when he had presented the wounded Commander to them, allowing them the chance of a possible future for all of them, they gave in to their emotions and gave the serum to their friend, leaving the Commander to die along with any chance of surviving this nightmare of a world.

That's what ruined them in the first place, their emotions. It's their greatest weakness. Years later, and they still can't see it. Years later, and here they are again mourning for a friend despite being the closest to victory they've been in over a hundred years. Instead of mourning, they could be planning their next attack instead of grieving and waiting for their enemies to attack them. At least that way they wouldn't be wasting their time, letting the sacrifices of their comrades to go to waste.

Disgusted, Floch turns to leave.

"Are you leaving so soon?" Mikasa murmurs, but he knows what she's really asking. _How can you leave now when you just got here? Do you feel nothing at all if you're able to come here and not say a word like they meant nothing to you? How heartless are you that you can walk away from this?_

He doesn't answer her and just walks away without so much as a backward glance.

It doesn't matter to him that she thinks he's heartless. He couldn't care less if they think he's a monster. They can cry all they want. Floch's done grieving. He's already planning on the next military meeting with the Queen, drawing up possible actions they can take against the countries that are sure to come for them because he knows tears won't help them. Actions will.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Sometimes I'd like to watch movies in the middle of writing but that just distracts me...Maybe I should take a break and read SnK 107 but it kind of scares me after everything that I've seen so far ^^"_

 **Word Count:** _765_


	45. Come Back to Me

**A/N:** _The funeral scene in SnK 107 broke me._

* * *

His daughter visits him far too often. Perhaps it's to make up for lost time, to spend time with him when she couldn't because she was busy training to become a soldier. When she had left that day, she told him that she wasn't coming back. She would climb to the top ten and make her way to the Military Police where she would be able to eat as much as she wants without worrying about rations and sparing food for other people because everyone knows the Military Police spends far too much money on far too much food that they'll never finish. She wouldn't share a bite of it because she would have earned it all by herself. How childish she had been. A part of him thought that she wouldn't make it back at all, but a bigger part of him knew that she'd make it alright in the end. He could only hope that it would make her a better person after she was finished, and it did.

He recalls when he had first taken her hunting. She had taken to the bow and arrow quite naturally. It was as if she were born to wield that weapon and hunt game. It wasn't long when she began to run off ahead into the woods, leaving the rest of them behind because she was confident she could hunt big game by herself. And when she did, she wouldn't share a bit of it unless they wrestled it away because she had hunted it all by herself, so she was the most deserving of it.

Now she came back and taught the young ones in the village to hunt. She kept her horse's pace steady and slow so that the children could follow behind her, and she made sure that none of them fell behind. She took her time in teaching them how to hold their weapons properly, showed them certain tracks and scents that would bring them closer to their game, and even taught them how to tie nets and set up traps for the small game. And here she is now, teaching her father how to shoot a gun because she says it's more efficient than handling a bow and arrow.

"Just hold it at arm's length, Dad, and shoot," Sasha tells her father, lifting his arm so that it's pointing at a target she's pinned onto a tree. Although the Marleyan soldiers had only introduced the Paradis soldiers to these weapons quite recently, Sasha had become quite comfortable in using guns. She's even begun learning how to use a sniper, she's told her father, although it's not practical for hunting game and better for long-distance shots.

"I'm fine. You needn't hold my arm like I'm a child. Hell, I'm your father," her dad grumbles.

His daughter smirks as she lets her father's arm go and her grin grows even wider when he finally pulls the trigger, the bullet landing nowhere near the target. Well, at least she has enough manners not to laugh at him.

"I was pointing straight at the target!" her father says, ready to throw the gun down in exasperation, but his daughter takes the weapon from him to reload the bullets. Anyway, she's told him it's no good throwing a weapon like that on the ground. It might set itself off and hurt him, she said. Since when did she become so careful and caring? He'd tell her he's proud of the woman she's become, but she always laughs at him and tells him that he says that every time she comes over.

"You were _looking_ straight at the target," Sasha tells him, "but you weren't pointing at it at all. You were too angled and missed it. That's your problem, you know. Even when you shot with your arrow you'd be a little off, Dad." She doesn't return the gun to him right after. Instead, she points the gun at the tree herself and fires three shots straight at it. They're directly in the middle, but they hit the bright red circle in the middle and they're close enough to overlap. He'd be impressed if he didn't know that she was showing off to him.

Her father looks at her warily when she drops the gun in his hand. "Do I really need to learn how to use this?" he asks her. "I'm an old man and it's difficult for us old folks to get used to all this new technology. I'll manage just fine with my bow and arrows. After all, it's got me this far. Why don't you show the younger ones back at the village? I'm sure they'll take to this up more easily than I ever could."

His daughter laughs but she finally takes the gun from him, emptying the bullets and pocketing them. She shoves the gun into her bag and stretches. "Ah, you know I spend too much time with the kids nowadays, Dad," she tells him, but she has a smile on her face. "Between the kids here and the ones that Historia brings around from the orphanage, I'm always babysitting. It's just nice to spend time with an actual grownup, you know? Even if it's my grumpy old dad."

"Don't get cheeky now," he says, reaching out to give his daughter's cheek a quick pinch. "And what's wrong with babysitting now and again? It'll give you practice when you finally have children of your own."

Sasha snorts, finding the thought of having children ridiculous. "Having children in this day and age?" she asks. "With everything that's happening, what makes you think I'd have children anytime soon?"

He follows his daughter as she leads him to where they've left their horses. "I dunno. Thought that Connie fellow might have taken a liking to you after everything you've been through," her father says. "And if I'm not mistaken, you're rather fond of him, aren't you?"

She laughs, but he can see that her cheeks have turned red at the mention of her friend. "He's my best friend, Dad. He's saved my life at least a dozen times and I've saved him just as many. It's impossible for us not to be close."

Her father grunts, but he doesn't completely believe her. "Well, I trust him to bring you back safe and sound from the next mission, you hear me? I don't even want one scratch on you."

It's a joke, but there's a heavy silence afterward. He isn't supposed to know about the mission because she hasn't told him. Connie had when he had stopped by the other day. He should probably be angry at his daughter for keeping something like this from him. Was she planning on flying off across the ocean without saying a word to him? She had done practically the same thing when she had joined the military, just leaving a simple note that said she wouldn't be coming back. But then she had.

He figured she was just waiting for the right time to tell him. But even if she never told him, he wouldn't be angry. How does one tell their father that they're leaving and might never come back? It's easier to not say anything at all.

"I was going to say something to you, honest," Sasha says quietly, but he hushes her quickly. He doesn't want her apologies. He only wants one thing from her.

"Just promise me you'll come home," he tells her. "You're a grown woman now. You can go where you want to go just like you did when you left home for the military. But you have to come home, alright? It's fine, but always come home, Sasha."

His daughter looks at him, speechless. She's not sure if she should laugh or cry, so she does both. Throwing her arms around him, she hugs him so tightly that he's sure she'll crush his ribs. "I promise. Of course, I'll come home."

* * *

 **A/N:** You know, I accidentally wrote it and it reminded me a lot of that scene with Annie and her father. It was all unintentional though! I am happy with how this ended up though :)

 **Word Count:** _1328_


	46. What Happened to Us

**A/N:** _I just watched the first episode of the new Free! season. It's like revisiting an old friend. Always so pleasant. I love KyoAni so much and they do such stellar work. I'm excited_ for _this season! I've also started Banana Fish, one of my favorite manga. I'm so happy MAPPA is animating it! They're doing a fantastic job ^^_

 _For someone who wanted the first meeting between EMA._

* * *

"What's he like?" Mikasa asks Eren, trying to keep up with him. He always walks ahead of her, although he's usually always running. She doesn't know why he feels the need to be in front of her when it would just be easier to walk with her side by side. She quickens her pace, soon matching him in stride so that she no longer lingers behind him. "This boy…Armin, you said. What does he like to do? You said he likes to read, but you didn't say anything else about him."

"Oh, you know," Eren says, shrugging. His pace has slowed some. He's probably gotten tired from walking so quickly. "He's interested in other things, but it's mostly books that he likes. He tells me about them a lot."

Mikasa frowns. That isn't very much information to go on. Still, she follows him, curious to see what this friend of Eren's is like.

As they get closer to Eren's friend Armin's house, Mikasa notices that Eren's pace quickens. She follows suit, wondering why Eren is in such a rush now. Then she notices shouts coming from the place they're running from. It's the sounds of a scuffle. She's only known Eren for a few weeks now, but she's been with him long enough to know what a fight sounds like.

When they arrive, Mikasa can see that it's an unfair fight. Three burly boys take turns punching another boy who doesn't stand a chance, yet she admires the way the boy never falls. He blocks a dozen punches and throws many of his own that all miss, but he never falls. She's still standing there in awe when Eren rushes forward, calling Armin's name and getting ready to beat down the bullies. The bullies, however, only look delighted to have another punching bag and easily dodge the first punch, twisting around him and shoving him against the wall.

"You stupid bastards!" Eren shouts before they pound his head against the wall once more. There's a cut against his forehead and he's bleeding profusely, but he still glares at them with such anger in his eyes. "Cowards, all of you!"

The bullies simply laugh at Eren, forcing his face to the ground and making him eat dirt. Armin attempts to wrestle free from the boy that holds him but to no avail. He can only cry out as Eren is repeated pummeled by the others. The only person they don't bother looking at is Mikasa, already writing her off as non-threatening because of her long hair and the dress she wears. That's where they make her mistake.

She's faster than they thought her to be. She can see their surprise when she rushes up to the boy that's holding Armin down. Mikasa yanks him off easily as if he's just a doll and kicks him swiftly in the stomach, causing him to double over and cough. She moves for the other two, Armin stumbling behind her, but she hardly needs any help in taking them down by herself.

"What the -?" cries a boy, a sweaty redhead with too many freckles across his face, when Mikasa pulls him off Eren and throws him over her shoulder like a sack of rice.

Lifting him up above her head, she throws him onto the cobblestone street. She relishes the sound of him hitting the ground and his pained groans that follow. Before the next bully can be thrown in the same spot, the boy pushes himself off the ground, scrambling away but not before yelling a tearful, "Crazy bitch!" at her.

Eren has hardly thrown a real punch at the bullies, but he takes advantage of the last bully that Mikasa throws on the ground. Before the boy can pick himself off the ground and retreat, Eren pounces on him, punching him over and over again before the bully pushes Eren off and scampers away.

"Yeah, that's right!" Eren shouts. Mikasa wonders if his head wound is affecting him because he tips over when he stands it looks as if he's about to fall over any minute. "You assholes better run!"

Looking behind her, Mikasa walks over to the blond boy and extends a hand towards him. He has a few cuts and bruises here and there, but overall he doesn't look too badly hurt. She gives him a polite smile and asks, "Are you alright?"

He gives her a grateful grin in return and takes her hand warmly in his. "I am thanks to you. Are you Mikasa? Eren has told me so much about you. I'm Armin." His smile is nervous, but it is kind.

Before Mikasa can tell him that she's also delighted to finally meet him, Eren throws his arms around both of their shoulders, pulling them all closer together. He has a wide grin on his face.

"It's so great that you can finally meet each other. Armin, this is Mikasa. Mikasa, this is Armin. I'm sure we'll all be good friends." Eren looks absolutely ecstatic that all his favorite people are finally in one place. Looking at Armin, he asks, "So what have you been reading? Did you read about anything interesting?"

"Ah, yeah!" Armin says. He reaches for the back of his head, twirling a lock of his blond hair between his fingers. "The book is at my house though, but we can all look at it if you guys really want to." His words are directed to the both of them, but he only looks at Mikasa, curious to see if she shares the same interests as all of them.

"That sounds lovely," she tells him. To Eren, she says, "We should clean up all of your cuts. You're bleeding a lot, you know."

He ignores her. Instead, Eren reaches for their hands, taking them in his, and Mikasa marvels at how well they all fit together. They're like matching puzzle pieces.

"Come on then," Eren says, already starting ahead. He's practically dragging them towards Armin's house. "You're going to love it, Mikasa. Armin's the best when it comes to storytelling and he always has the best books. And you already know how cool Mikasa is, Armin, but she's also a really good listener. Guys, hurry up or it'll get dark soon!"

Mikasa looks at Armin who is already looking back at her, a grin on his face. She smiles back at him, excited. It looks like they're all going to be good friends. The best of friends.

* * *

Reaching up at the ceiling to grasp at nothing, Mikasa wonders what it would be like to hold their hands again. Would they all fit perfectly together like they did when they were little?

People are not puzzle pieces. She only learned this when it was too late. Puzzle pieces are constant, never changing, and thus they will always fit together. People change though. Even if you're the one to stay the same, the others won't fit you the way they did before. They poke you in the edges, and if you force it then you'll hurt yourself and them in the process. But when you're apart, it kills you. What is there to do?

So they can't be together, but it destroys her to be apart. Maybe it's her own fault for staying the same even after they've all changed. She just wanted to stay that way forever – holding hands and telling stories under covers, but they'd be together. Now they're all drifting apart. Armin has his military plans, thinking of the next move to make, and Eren…she doesn't know what Eren is doing anymore. Sometimes she thinks she doesn't know him anymore at all.

Mikasa closes her hand into a fist, bringing it down to rest the back of her arm against her eyes.

It's too late to wonder what happened to them, what caused them to change and what made her want to stay behind. She wants to go back to that day again and tell her past self that it's a trap. It doesn't matter how close she feels to them. They'll all drift apart in the end. It doesn't matter how perfectly their hands fit together or how warm their smiles are. It'll all break her heart in the end.

* * *

 **A/N:** _My boyfriend read this one as well and liked it, which surprised me. The ones not about shipping are the ones I'm always the least sure about (although it look as though I've written quite a bit of them now). Thank you all for reading :)_

 **Word Count:** _1441_


	47. Sleepover

**A/N:** _It's SnK Positivity Week on Tumblr and I wrote a fic for OG Squad Levi for Character_ Appreciation _Day 3_

* * *

There are a lot of times when becoming a part of Squad Levi just feels like becoming a part of a family. A really odd family where the goal is to kill Titans and not die, but a family all the same. They did chores together and ate meals together. Even now with one of the squad members watching over him tonight in his jail cell, it feels more like they're babysitting him rather than confining him. Perhaps not even babysitting. Rather, it feels much more like a sleepover, especially once Eld eventually leaves his place outside of Eren's cell and enters, complaining that it's too cold to sleep on the cold stone floor.

"Scoot over," Eld says, nudging Eren. He's already squeezing himself in, sitting at the edge of Eren's bed and pulling some of the blanket over his body. "It doesn't make sense for you to be more comfortable than the guard, does it?"

"But do you really need to be in my bed? You have your own blanket too," Eren mumbles, frowning when Eld uses it to cover the both of them. It's definitely warmer with two blankets though and truthfully, he doesn't mind sharing. It's been a while since he's shared a room with anyone, and the company isn't bad.

"Sleeping on the floor is uncomfortable and I'm not young like you. Sitting on hard stone like that hurts my ass," Eld complains. He reaches over to pinch one of Eren's toes and Eren curls his legs back, giving him more space. "Hey, you better not kick me tonight or I'll beat you up during training tomorrow. Not that I don't do all that already."

"Yeah, we'll see about that," Eren mumbles. He turns in his bed, yanking the blankets back with him. When Eld hisses at him, Eren simply sticks his tongue out at the man. The light in the cell is dim, but it's enough for Eld to see, which Eren can tell because of the annoyed way Eld roughly pulls at the sheets.

When Eld can't manage to get a decent amount of blanket to cover himself, he lifts his head up and glares at Eren. "Hey, punk. Didn't anyone teach you to share? It's basic manners. Do you need me to beat you up?"

Eren doesn't respond. He pretends to be asleep and purposely makes his breathing heavier. His eyes are squeezed tightly and he curls up in his bed, pulling the blankets even closer around him so that Eld doesn't even get an inch of them.

It doesn't work because Eld crawls over to where Eren is before grabbing the blanket and yanking it all off of him. He shivers, the cold air so different from the warmth that the blankets provided, and immediately sits up, pulling the blankets back. Eld only pulls back harder, nearly taking Eren with him. "I said share!"

"What the heck are you guys doing?" a voice asks from outside the cell. When the two turn, they see Petra standing there with a confused expression. She has piles and piles of blankets in her arms, so many that they tower over her head and she needs to crane her neck to look around them.

"It doesn't matter what we're doing," Eld says, hurriedly throwing the blankets away as if to prove that he and Eren weren't having any sort of scuffle. He's careless though and they clumsily land on Eren, covering him. "What are you doing? You're not even supposed to be here! It's my turn to be looking over Eren tonight. You should be sleeping."

When Eren manages to find his way out of the blankets, he looks over at Petra who is surprisingly flustered. Her cheeks flush a soft pink as she fumbles over her words to find a believable excuse, but all she manages to do is stutter over herself endlessly. Looking at the blankets, though, Eren believes he's found the reason why she's come in the first place. It's obvious, isn't it?

"She came to give me some blankets," Eren informs Eld. He's rather proud of himself for figuring it out and touched that Petra would take some time out of her night to make sure he had enough blankets to keep himself warm. During the times that she's looked after him, she would always grumble about how it was cruel to let him sleep in such a cold dungeon with so little blankets. He might be a prisoner in the eyes of everyone else, but he was still a child and there was no reason to let him freeze to death, she always said. He looks at her again, smiling at her warmly. "Isn't that right, Petra?"

"Aw, soft on the kid, aren't you?" Eld teases. He throws an arm around Eren and grins at her. "Don't worry. I'm taking great care of him. Better care than you ever could, as a matter of fact!"

She glares fiercely at Eld and shoves her way onto Eren's bed, squeezing herself in between Eld and Eren. She's dumped all the blankets onto Eren and he thinks perhaps she cares about him too much because there are far too many for just him and that he'll have trouble sleeping in such a warm bed. She puts her arms protectively around Eren and frowns at Eld, saying, "You were doing a terrible job. Don't think I didn't see you fighting with Eren just as I got here. I'm sure the Captain would be incredibly unhappy about this if I were ever to report it."

"Just as unhappy as he would be if he heard you made a nightly visit down here just to give Eren a few blankets. I understand completely," Eld says, nodding as Petra scowls at him. He scoots over next to Petra so that all three of them sit on Eren's bed sandwiched together. "You didn't happen to bring pillows, did you?"

"Of course! I'm not a monster," Petra says, sounding mildly insulted that Eld even thought for a brief second that she would forget to bring pillows. She pulls one out from the pile of blankets that sits on Eren's lap and hands one over to Eld before taking another one for herself. She fluffs them up, putting them behind their backs so they won't have to lean back against hard stone walls.

Eren wasn't thrilled when he had first been informed that he'd be sleeping in the castle dungeon, but it was one of the requirements agreed upon when the Scouting Legion had acquired him so he didn't complain about it much. The mattress was even smaller than the one he had as a trainee and was hard rather than firm. His pillow was so thin that he might as well not use it at all. The cell itself was dreary with only dim candlelight to illuminate it, always threatening to flicker out because of the cold draft that managed to blow through the wooden doors that led to the castle basement. Still, sitting here squished between two of his new squadmates with mountains of pillow and blankets to help warm them up, Eren thinks he's never been more comfortable.

Just a Petra was finishing tucking both Eren and Eld in ("Just like a mother!" Eld huffs like a fussy child, but he winks at Eren to show that he doesn't mind it at all), she stops and turns her head towards the door. Looking at Eren and Eld, she whispers, "Did you two hear anything?"

Eren shakes his head and Eld only shrugs. Frowning, Petra settles back down into her spot without bothering to tuck in the rest of Eld, who sadly flops his loose hand at his side. The three sit there, straining their ears to hear what it is. They're footsteps, but Eren hasn't been here long enough to recognize whose it is and he looks to Eld and Petra who are currently mouthing suggestions at one another.

"Captain?" Eld mouths, but Petra just shakes her head. He sits there listening for a few more seconds before pointing at her and whispers with a grin, "Auruo."

She nods enthusiastically and sticks herself out of the blankets more to call out, "Auruo? That's you, isn't it?"

There's a clatter at the other end - metal hitting stone - and a curse that is definitely Auruo. He arrives promptly, an unhappy expression on his face from being caught sneaking down here when he shouldn't be. The curious thing is that he has plates full of food with him. While it could be a midnight snack, Eren finds it strange that he would bring so much just for himself and carry it all the way down to the dungeon.

"Midnight snack?" Eld asks, raising an eyebrow. "That's an awful lot of food for just one person, you know. Care to share? I was having a conversation about sharing with Eren a little while ago. You could be a good example!"

Auruo scowls at him before stomping into the cell and sitting down next to Eren. "What the fuck are all of you guys doing here? I thought it was Eld's turn tonight," he says. He tries to sound tough, but he's holding the food so awkwardly in his hands, not sure how to give it to Eren while still maintaining his tough demeanor. In the end, he simply plops the extra plate onto Eren's lap clumsily, dropping a fork onto there as well. "You assholes made me drop a fork."

Petra rolls her eyes. "Oh, boohoo. What a tragedy! Share with Eren so Eld and I can have a plate, Auruo. You aren't going to let us starve here, are you?" she says. When Auruo grudgingly gives his other plate to her, she squeals with delight. "Delicious!"

"Petra came here to give Eren extra blankets since it's cold down here," Eld says. He's talking with his mouth full of food and Petra laughs at him, telling him not to drop any crumbs onto the blankets because they'll be a pain to wash and the Captain will be sure to notice the mess. Licking his lips, he says, "Midnight snack?"

Auruo mumbles something about how he was grabbing leftovers after waking up hungry and he just happened to remember that Eren was down here in the dungeon and he just wanted to rub the food in his face. His story makes Petra snort and he becomes offended when Eld calls him a liar (although Eren would have to agree with Eld since all the food that Auruo had brought down was clearly just made and nothing they had eaten recently), and they all begin to bicker amongst each other when another person joins them.

"You guys...why are all of you here?"

Their heads all snap up to see who it is and they all let out a relieved sigh when they see that it's only Gunter.

"You nearly gave us a heart attack," Eld laughs. He pats the space next to him even though the bed is nearly full. "Come join us, Gunter."

The last member of Squad Levi seems confused, but he eventually stumbles over to Eren's mattress and takes his seat with them, pulling over the blanket so that he's covered as well. It's almost not long enough to cover all of him, but Petra gives him another blanket to compensate.

"I'm sorry, but...what's happening here?" Gunter says again. He sits up, pointing at all of them in confusion. "Eld and Eren I understand. But Petra? And Auruo? What are you two doing here? And what are all of us doing in Eren's cell? In his bed? What is this?"

"Sleepover," Petra chirps happily, believing this to be an adequate answer but it only makes Gunter even more confused.

"Petra came with more blankets because she thought Eren would be cold. Auruo came with food because he thought Eren would be hungry," Eld explains. He looks suspiciously at Gunter. "But then why are you here? You didn't even bring anything but yourself, so you should really be the one to explain yourself!"

"Well, you know," Gunter mumbles, but he never finishes and Eren finds out why he's come. The rest of the group simply laugh at him and eventually goad him into telling a story. Apparently, he's a master at spinning tales.

"He has the best scary stories," Petra whispers to Eren.

Eren doubts that. He's only ever heard Gunter tell stories about his childhood or talk about his own trainee days whenever it's his turn to watch over Eren. Kind and gentle Gunter tell a good ghost story? It seems impossible to him.

He is, of course, proven wrong when Gunter eventually sighs and tells them a story about ghosts that roamed this very castle. They were the true owners of this house a long time ago until robbers came and tortured them, eventually locking them away in this very dungeon where their screams could not be heard. Their bones were eventually found decades later after the castle was donated to the military. Despite their having died so long ago, Gunter claims that at night the ghosts of the family members can sometimes be seen floating around the castle, moaning and groaning about their untimely death.

Beside Eren, Auruo mutters about how this is a ridiculous tale than any child can tell, but he shakes in fear and his eyes move nervously around the cell as if to check for specters that may be wandering about. Petra doesn't say a thing, instead staring at Gunter in wide-eyed horror the entire time. Only Eld laughs at the story before sleeping midway through it, snoring like a pig while Gunter finally finishes it. Although Gunter seems mildly annoyed at Eld for his lack of attention, Eren is somewhat grateful even though it's not enough for him to feel completely unaffected by the ghost story.

It is not that the story is incredibly scary. He's heard worse stories back in his days as a trainee. Sasha and Connie would often share stories about beheaded men looking for their heads, banshees searching for their kidnapped children, or swordsmen from a different era still seeking their revenge. The problem was that you could tell right away that it was simply a story because of the way they told the story with such glee, giggling at the goriest bits. With Gunter, there was none of that. He told stories with the quiet seriousness that he told all his stories and for some reason, that made his stories all the more terrifying to Eren.

I'll never go to sleep now, Eren thinks to himself. I'll stay awake this entire night. There is nothing on this earth that can get me to close my eyes. But even as he tells himself this, even as he envies Eld for being able to sleep so peacefully, and even as he jumps at every little noise he hears in the darkness, he feels comfort in knowing that he is not alone in this castle. Before long, he feels his eyelids drooping and his mind slipping into the unconsciousness before falling asleep.

* * *

Levi walks to the kitchen in the morning, expecting to find his squad there getting ready for the morning, but there is something off. The aroma of coffee that so often fills the air is not there and the sound of bickering and joking about is nowhere to be heard. When he steps into the kitchen, it is oddly empty. As he soon finds out, every room in the castle is vacant and his squad is missing. Their rooms are empty too, the doors left ajar as if someone had stolen them away during the night from right under his nose. He would worry, but he knows they're far too competent to have been kidnapped.

Grumbling, he makes his way down to the dungeon, the only place he hasn't looked. He's not sure what to expect. Perhaps just Eren down there, asleep because he's still a teenager who needs all the sleep he can get. Instead, he finds his entire squad there. They're piled onto Eren's bed with the child, snoring away like they had a long hard night. The bed overflows with pillows and blankets and Auruo looks as if he's about to fall off the bed any second.

Sighing, Levi walks over and nudges Auruo back onto the mattress without waking any of them. He has half a mind to wake them all up right now. They still have work to do and they don't have enough time to waste it away sleeping, but his team looks so peaceful and he doesn't have the heart to disturb him.

He ends up leaving them there, deciding that it can't hurt to let them sleep in for another hour. He can always make coffee and breakfast himself. And if they don't wake up by then, then he'll yell at them.

* * *

 **A/N:** _Thank you for reading! Leave a review if you have the time or share your favorite characters ^^ (Mine is Petra but I also love Sasha a lot!)_

 **Word Count:** _2933_


	48. Naptime

**A/N:** _Someone asked for Levi + Hanji daycare AU ^^_

* * *

People always talk about what angels are when the kids are sleeping. They speak of naptime as if it's the most peaceful time of day when you're looking after children, but those people don't really know shit. Levi knows because he has to put toddlers to sleep five days of the week. Or, you know, try to. And it's always a nightmare. He's constantly chasing them around the room, practically throwing them onto their designated sleep area with a pillow and a blanket, and by the time everyone is actually sleeping, there are only five more minutes left before the next activity. He can't even use those five minutes to relax because he's always worrying about how to get all the stubborn brats to wake up and organized to make crafts or whatever stupid thing Hanji has in store for them.

"Hey, Levi," Hanji whispers, tugging at Levi's sleeve. They point to a trail of crumbs that begins at the backpacks and ends at one of the sleeping children. The child isn't actually sleeping though, which they can both tell because of the way the two kids are giggling and whispering to each other. "It is naptime and not snack time right now, right?"

He can only sigh because yelling would make too much noise. "I'm kind of dealing with these three right now, so can you maybe take care of that by yourself? If you're fast enough, I'm sure you'll be able to snatch Braus' snacks away from her."

"Right-o, Captain," Hanji says with a fake salute, rolling their eyes before crouching down and speaking with Sasha Braus, the preschooler with the appetite of a grown horse. "Whatcha got there, Braus? Are you going to share some with the rest of us? Looks pretty good."

Sasha hugs the large bag of mini oreos tightly to her chest. She looks so comical with the cookie crumbs smeared all over her mouth and that defensive glare on her face. The bag's so large that it's nearly as big as the kid is and it makes Hanji wonder how the child managed to smuggle it in without anyone noticing.

"I _am_ sharing!" Sasha says. Looking around, she looks to her closest classmate and shoves a cookie into his half-open mouth. He's so surprised by being woken up this way that he nearly chokes on the oreo. "See? I just gave one to Connie."

"Oh dear," Hanji mutters, hurriedly sitting Connie up and rubbing the poor kid's back until he successfully swallows down the treat without choking on it. They look warily at Sasha, who sits with a smug look on their dirty face. "Are you going to put that away? It's not snack time, Sasha. It's naptime. You have to go to sleep now. You can eat later."

"I wanna eat more!" Sasha frowns. Reaching into the bag for a fistful of cookies, she pulled out a handful more that she shovels into her mouth. Hanji isn't even sure if she's chewing or just inhaling all of it. How does one kid eat so many cookies and not get sick? "They're good."

Hanji raises their eyebrows. "Is that so?" Before Sasha can reply, Hanji snatches the bag of oreos from her and begins to eat them. They've never been much of a snacker, but they shovel oreos one by one into their mouth, munching on them obnoxiously. Grinning at Sasha, they say, "Say, you're right! These are delicious!"

"Hey, those are mine!" Sasha says, beginning to tear up. She stumbles out of her blankets, toddling over and reaching for the bag of cookies but Hanji lifts it out of her reach. "Hanji, give them back! They're mine, mine!"

Hanji takes another cookie before looking at the bag. Opening it up and showing it to Sasha, they frown exaggeratedly. "Looks like I ate it all! Whoops!" It is, of course, Sasha who had eaten most of the cookies in the first place, but Hanji doesn't feel the need to mention that. It's not like the child will care anyway because everyone knows that it's knowing who ate the last of it that really matters.

Completely devastated that the last of her food was eaten by someone other than herself, Sasha collapses to the floor in heaving sobs. Her wails keep growing larger and larger and sound more like an animal dying rather than a crying child. Hanji simply pats the girl sympathetically on the back, muttering "there, there," while wondering how the rest of the children haven't woken up yet. Babies. They can sleep through anything. In time, Sasha exhausts herself from crying so hard that she falls asleep.

Meanwhile, Levi turns back to the three children who refuse to sleep because of their dissatisfaction with their designated sleeping areas. They have this discussion nearly every day. It's randomized, so no one has to sleep next to the same person all the time and they get to make friends with everyone more quickly. It was all Hanji's idea, so Levi knew it would be messier and more disorganized than it should be than a fixed sleeping arrangement, but he's too pissed to say anything about it to them right now.

"Eren. Jean. Shut up and go to sleep," Levi says. He glares at the little girl in the middle of them. "You too, Mikasa."

"I want to sleep next to Mikasa!" Eren whines. He fusses about, nearly kicking Armin in the leg. Levi is grateful that he doesn't though because he would be sure to wake one of the only sleeping children left. "And I hate Jean!"

"Well, I hate you, so it doesn't matter!" Jean says back to him, sticking out his tongue. He tugs at Mikasa's arm possessively. "I want to sleep next to Mikasa!"

His head feels as though it's going to burst. Trying to keep his voice as calm as possible, he looks at the two of them and says, "How many times do I have to explain to the both of you that you both get to sleep next to Mikasa? Eren is on one side and Jean is on the other."

Jean looks somewhat satisfied with this setup, but Eren is still frowning. Holding onto Mikasa's arm, he says, "I want her to sleep next to Armin too. Not Jean!"

"No. No. It doesn't matter what you want," Levi growls. He gently pushes all the children back into their sleeping areas, quickly wrapping them up into their blankets and hoping that being rolled up will make them more agreeable. It's useless, of course, and Eren is already untangling himself out of his blankets.

"Mikasa wants to sleep next to Armin too! Right, Mikasa?" Eren bellows.

"Didn't I just say that it doesn't matter what you want? That goes for Mikasa too, not just you," Levi says, quickly shushing Eren. He looks over at where Armin is sleeping and is relieved to see that the child is still sleeping. Why can't more of the kids be like him? Or even just like Ymir, who had snuck from her own sleeping spot once most of the children were asleep and squeezed herself next to Historia. (At first, it annoyed him, but he found that it didn't hurt anyone and the child was smart enough not to disturb the others when making her way to sleep beside Historia. Besides, Historia never seemed to mind sharing a pillow with Ymir.)

"I want to sleep next to Eren," Mikasa says sleepily. She looks as if she's about to topple over, but he's sure that she won't fall asleep until Eren is beside her.

"And you are," Levi says, rubbing at his temples. When will these kids ever go to sleep? "You're sleeping next to Jean and Eren. Tell them that it's fine. Eren, you and Armin will get to sleep beside Mikasa some other day. Just be okay with this for now."

"No!" Eren cries. He takes Mikasa and yanks her up, holding her close to him like a teddy bear. "She doesn't even like Jean."

"That's not true!" Jean says. The boy, who was nodding off earlier, wakens immediately with that comment and reaches out to Mikasa, grabbing onto her sleeve and pulling her back towards him. The girl doesn't seem to mind at all, too tired to do anything but allow herself to be tugged back and forth.

"Okay, both of you need to stop. Stop. I said _stop!"_ Levi says, pulling the children apart. His voice is louder than he intended it to be and even Hanji briefly looks over at him. He pulls both Jean and Eren up, shaking a finger in their face. Lowering his voice so that he's speaking very quietly to the both of them, he says, "Both of you. Everyone is sleeping but the two of you refuse to sleep and threaten to wake everyone up with all your bickering. Stand in the corners of the room - Jean, you stand next to the board while Eren stands next to the bookshelf - and I better not see any of you do anything except stare at the wall."

Eren is about to open his mouth and protest, but Jean puts a hand on his arm and shakes his head. He may hate him, but even he doesn't want to see Levi destroy his enemy. It'd be too brutal. The boys go to their respective corners and Levi sits down on the floor, foolishly believing that he can rest now, but when he turns he sees Mikasa standing up, a blanket clutched tightly in her fist.

He's about to snap at her, asking her what she wants, but Hanji arrives right then and squats down so that they're eye-level with Mikasa and asks, "What's up, kiddo? Can't sleep?"

"I want to be in timeout," Mikasa mumbles, rubbing at her tired eyes. "Put me in timeout too. I want to be with Eren."

Hanji looks amused, but Levi's too tired to put up with any of this. "I can't put you in timeout if you haven't done anything wrong," he tells her. "Now go back to sleep."

She stands there for a second, looking at him carefully, and for a second he thinks that she'll go back to her sleeping area and fall back asleep. She doesn't though. Instead, she walks up to him and kicks him. Hard.

" _Shit_ ," Levi hisses. He's always cursed a lot although he's usually managed to avoid spouting any profanities in front of the kids. This, however, hurts like a bitch. Rubbing at his knee, he glares at Mikasa. It's sure to leave a bruise in the morning. "What the fuck did you do that for?"

"Put me in timeout. I just hurt you," Mikasa says. She understands how this discipline thing works a little too well and at the same time not at all.

Levi is about to tell her that she's definitely not going to be put next to Eren at all anymore, but Hanji answers instead.

"Mikasa," Hanji says gently, but there's something different about their voice. It's their voice they used when they're pissed, the one that scares the children so much because the only thing worse than Levi's uncontrolled rage is Hanji's barely contained fury. They put their hands on both of Mikasa's shoulder. "I'm sure you know what you did was very wrong. And I can't put you in timeout because since that's what you want and that wouldn't be a real punishment. Normally I wouldn't allow you to even be in the same room as Eren after what you did to Levi, but I'll forgive you this once, okay? All you need to do is be a good girl and go to sleep. Can you do that for me?"

The little girl nods and turns back to her sleeping space, but not before looking at Levi and mumbling a quiet "sorry" to him.

"Jesus," Levi sighs, collapsing in his chair after all the kids - including Jean and Eren, who are slumped in their corners sleeping - are asleep. He pulls out two one-dollar bills from his wallet, one for each curse word he had uttered in front of Mikasa earlier, and drops it into the Levi Jar. It used to be called the Swear Jar, but it turns out that Levi does several things that aren't child-appropriate that are not limited to swearing (including: using sarcasm that the children don't understand, rude potty jokes, and laughing at the children's expense) and it was thus renamed the Levi Jar. Of course, Hanji and the children sometimes contribute it (the children usually a penny or piece of candy they've found at the bottom of their backpacks), but Levi is by far the biggest contributor. "I'm glad that's over."

"Only for now. Even if they're more behaved after this, we have the afternoon group coming in after they're gone," Hanji points out. They collapse next to him, a rare sigh escaping their lips. It's not often that they're as worn out as he is.

Levi lets his head fall back as he closes his eyes, thinking about the next group of rowdy children that will soon be running around the room and raising hell. "Shit."

Hanji simply points to the jar again.

* * *

 **A/N:** _I like writing characters in daycare/preschool AU. The peaceful AU they all belong in._

 **Word Count:** _2216_


	49. Somewhere We Belong

**A/N:** _I have mixed feelings about Gabi, but I always get really excited when people ask me to write for her :)_

 _Manga spoilers_!

* * *

Sitting in the cell, she had expected them to be kept in conditions harsher than she was used to on Liberio. After all, she had been accepted on Liberio because of her services as a warrior of Marley despite her tainted blood. It's something these monsters would never understand. Devils, the lot of them, heartless creatures that killed her friends without a second thought. They should have killed her when they caught her on the airship, but they wanted to make her suffer first. Of course, they'd keep her locked in a dungeon where they could torture her for killing one of them. It only makes sense that these demons would want her to suffer a long, slow death.

But the torture never comes. While she's locked in a cell, separated by Falco by a stone wall, they never come to poke her with strange instruments or tear out her hair and limbs. No, instead they feed her three meals a day. They give the prisoners a clean change of clothes every other day. The guards don't talk to them, hardly even look them in the eye, but they give the prisoners more hospitality than they should. In some ways, they treat them better than any Marleyan officer has ever treated them. Gabi can't understand it at all.

"It's seafood today," the soldier says. It's the same soldier who was on the airship that same fateful day, the one with the closely cut hair and large eyes. He had cried the most on the trip back to Paradis. Gabi had tried to ignore him, but his sobs were too loud. She never knew anyone could cry so much. She thought he would hate them the most, but he acts like everyone else does. He pushes the trays to them, slipping them through the bottom gap of the cell bars. "Neither of you is allergic to shellfish, are you?"

"No," Falco squeaks from the other side of the wall. She hears him pick up the tray, take a large bite of it, and almost choke because he's eaten too much at once. "It's good! What is it?"

The soldier sits down across the wall that separates Falco and Gabi. He smiles at Falco and for a second Gabi is surprised that he looks so human. Kind, even, but she quickly shakes that thought from her mind. They're nothing but monsters and that's all they'll ever be.

"They're lobster rolls. We caught a whole lot of them the other day and Nikolo – that's our chef – decided to make these. We had some leftover and I decided to sneak some over for you guys. You're young, so it's good if you eat a lot, right?" The man smiles at Falco who continues to eat, enjoying every bite of it. He turns to Gabi, who sits in the corner of her cell, her face turned so that she doesn't have to look at him or the food he's brought for her. "You aren't going to eat, Gabi?"

She balls her hands into tight fists, clenching them to her sides. If she could, she'd punch him in the face, but she knows her arms are far too short to reach him. Instead, she curls up with her knees tucked up under her chin and mumbles, "I don't want to eat any of your disgusting food. I'm not hungry anyway."

The man hesitates, wondering whether or not he should try to convince the stubborn child to eat even a bite of it, but Falco says, "Don't worry about her, Mister Springer. If you leave it there, she'll eat it as soon as she's hungry. It always happens."

Gabi hates that Falco always talks to the guards and soldiers that pass by. He never gives them any information about Liberio, but his civil conversations with them are enough to anger her. He speaks to them so cordially, as if they weren't the ones who had locked them up in the first place, and never forgets to address them as "Mister" or "Miss." She'd lash out at him, call him a traitor, but she decides that ignoring him is a more effective punishment because it seems the punishment given by the Paradis Eldians isn't cruel enough. Still, it's difficult to keep her mouth shut during moments like this.

The man – or Mister Springer, as Falco calls him – just nods. He stands up, brushing his clothes off, and says, "I'll leave you two then. I'll come back later to collect your trays. Alright, Gabi?"

He says her name and not Falco's because he knows she hates her name being spoken from any of their dirty mouths. Falco might not mind it, but she does. She loathes it. She wishes that they treated her like filth, called her "scum" or "monster," and threatened to kill her instead of providing her with food and water, speaking with her, and referring to her by her given name. He's mocking her by calling her name so kindly as if she's a child.

It's only then that she speaks because she can't bear the thought of him coming back with the same kind expression, saying her name with such concern when he returns to find that she hasn't touched even one of the lobster rolls that he's left behind for her. She doesn't just speak. She shouts. She yells. She screams because it's been so long since she's spoken to anyone at all and if she screams loud enough, she can break them in the same way they're trying to break her.

"Shut up!" she screeches. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Breathing heavily, she stumbles to the bars of her cells, reaching between them to lunge at the soldier but she collapses against them instead. Splotches of black obscure her vision and her head feels light. She tightens her grip around the steel bars, but she can feel it become loose as she slips to the ground.

"Gabi? Gabi!" she hears Falco call. She wants to tell him to shut up too, but she's finding it difficult to lift her head.

Arms lift her up, the hands gentle. The same voice she had tried to silence calls to her, keeping her awake. "Gabi, you need to eat more. You'll pass out if you don't," the man says. Reaching down, he offers her a lobster roll. "Come on. You're still a kid."

"I am a _warrior_!" she roars. Gabi smacks his hand away and the food flies out of his hand and onto the floor of her prison cell. For a second, she feels regret. Such rich food had only been available to her during festivals and only then if she was authorized to attend one. To have such extravagant food end up on the ground is a waste.

Falco strains to look over at Gabi. He clings to the metal bars, looking at her with worry and concern just like he always does. "Gabi," he whispers. "Please just eat it. He's right, you know."

"Stop siding with him," Gabi shouts, glaring. She turns her anger back towards the soldier. Once again, she forces herself to stand and she pretends to be unaffected by the dizziness she feels. "You monsters don't even know what you've done, you don't even _care_. I was so close. We were all _so close_ , and you had to come and ruin everything."

The man shushes a distressed Falco. Taking a moment to look at Gabi carefully, he opens his mouth. "What did we ruin, Gabi?" he asks softly. The way he says her name makes her want to cry. When was the last time anyone had said her name so softly? When the Marleyan officers called her name, they'd bark, following it up with harsh orders about what to do and who to kill. Only her friends and family called her name with such gentleness. Who is this man and who did he think he was to treat her so kindly when she has been nothing but terrible to him?

"If we did what they wanted, they'd finally accept us. They wouldn't look at us like vermin or pests," Gabi says. Her voice shakes as she tries to hold back sobs. Tears leak from her eyes and she hastily wipes them away, but she's overflowing with them. "We would finally have somewhere to belong."

But once she's said this out loud – her biggest hope, her biggest dream, what she's been working for all along – she knows that it could never happen. She could kill all the damned devils in the world and they would always treat her like a monster. She saw it in the disgust in her instructors' faces, the repulsion in the shopkeepers at the festival stalls when all she and her friends wanted were food and pastries like the other children, and the absolute loathing in the faces of the Marleyan civilians whenever they saw star on the bright red band on her arm that marked her as different. She could do everything they wanted her to and more, and they'd never accept her. She had known that from the beginning and yet she pushed that thought far back into her mind, fooling herself into committing all their sins that they would change their mind. What a foolish girl. She might be a warrior, but she's still a child.

She looks at the man who still sits across from her, separated by the thick metal bars of her cell. He gazes at her with eyes full of sadness – for her and her broken dreams, for her lost friends, and the friends he had lost as well. There is an unbearable tiredness about him, and Gabi looks at the ground instead.

"I just wanted to belong somewhere," she mumbles, her voice thick and heavy. She doesn't remember the last time she cried. Before this, it was after seeing Zofia and Udo's broken bodies, but were there any times before that? She was too busy being a warrior to cry, too busy being used. "I just wanted somewhere to belong."

The soldier reaches his hand through the bars, but this time Gabi doesn't slap it away. His hand settles on the top of her head and sits there, kind and warm. Here she sits in a cold and dark cell, and the kindest touch she has ever received is from a man she considers her enemy. It makes her weep.

"Gabi," she hears Falco say, desperate to reach her, but the man hushes him once again. She'll be fine. She just needs time.

He tells her to eat – tells both her and Falco to eat because they might be warriors, but they're still children that are growing – and leaves. She thinks that even her parents weren't ever that kind. When they had told her to eat, it was to grow strong so she could be a warrior, not to eat for her own sake. It was always for someone else.

When she looks up to thank him, she sees that he's already left.

The lobster roll still sits on the floor where she had last left it and Gabi picks it up, dusting it off with her hand. Bringing it to her lips, she takes a bite and is surprised at how the lobster meat melts almost instantaneously in her mouth. It's sweet, soft, and tender. The bread holding it together is a bit hard, but it's better than what she's usually served for lunch on Liberio. It's the most delicious meal she's ever eaten, she thinks, but she hates it because it reminds her that this place feels more welcoming than anywhere she's ever been.

* * *

 **A/N:** _I really like writing Connie too! Not a lot of people ask for him, so I get excited if people ask for him specifically or try to squeeze him in if people say, "Oh, just write whoever you'd like for this one."_

 **Word Count:** _1948_


	50. Whistle While You Work

**A/N:** _I recently surpassed 400 followers on my Tumblr the other week and wrote this to celebrate! I always like to write shenanigans and pranks with the 104th kids. They seem like they'd be a fun bunch if not for all the death and whatnot._

 _The Office AU._

* * *

Twenty-seven-year-old Eren Jaeger sits in the conference room with his back turned in his chair to look inside the office where his co-workers sit attending to their work. It is an oddly peaceful day in the Shiganshina Paper Company office building. The typical workday consists of shenanigans and pranks pulled off by Mr. Jaeger and his rival (both in pranks and paper sales) Jean Kirstein. The two are often assisted by Sasha Braus and Connie Springer, two representatives from customer service, who switch from helping either Jaeger or Kirstein depending on whose prank they feel is superior to the other. However, all parties are seated, typing away at their desks or taking calls like they're supposed to. Everyone should be resting easy now that it seems like today will be one of the first incident-free days in a while, but Mr. Jaeger's smug smile gives him away.

"Suspicious smile? I always have this smile on," Eren says, flashing his teeth at the camera before turning once more to look out at the office. He seems more interested in what's taking place outside rather than the interview that's being conducted. "I have no idea what you guys are talking about. You make me sound like I'm an absolute criminal, but I can be a no-nonsense hard worker too."

He offers no other words to the camera, instead still staring out of the room as if waiting for something to happen. Suddenly, a high-pitched whistle is heard in the corner of the office. It seems to be coming from the receptionist's desk, but the receptionist - a young woman by the name of Mina Carolina - has her head ducked so that others cannot see if her lips are pursed or not, making it possible to tell if the noise came from her.

Nearby, Mr. Kirstein stands up, slamming his hands on his desk as he does so. He looks irritated - slightly crazed, even - and glares in the direction of Miss Carolina. Stomping over, he growls, "Did you hear that? That really high-pitched noise? It came from your desk, Mina!"

Miss Carolina looks up, startled. "A whistle?" she repeats, blinking confusedly. As it turns out, she's quite the actress. Her eyebrows are knitted together in concern and her lips are turned downwards in a frown. "Why, I didn't hear anything at all. Are you sure you don't need to go to the doctor, Jean? You've been mentioning hearing these noises all day, but none of us have heard anything."

"Maybe one of the fire alarms ran out of battery," Annie Leonhardt, an accountant in the other corner of the room, suggests. She doesn't look too interested in the conversation and is one of the few people not doing work. Instead of going through financial records like she should be doing, she's playing a game of solitaire on her computer.

"I've already checked them and replaced all of their batteries," Jean grumbles. He sits back down, but he's tense, ready to jump up as soon as he hears the whistle once more.

It's true. There are dozens of empty battery packages discarded on his desk and an alarming amount of batteries thrown away in the wastebasket next to his desk.

"Maybe you're just going crazy," snickers Mr. Springer from the back of the room. His laughter is accompanied by the giggles of Miss Braus, who shares the same office space as him.

"Shut up, Connie," Jean grumbles. He looks around suspiciously, waiting for the noise to come up again. When it seems that the noise is not returning, Jean sighs and turns back to his computer.

Eren finally turns away from the office and looks back at the camera pointed at him. He's grinning far too much to be innocent and he must realize this because he finally tells the camera, "Okay, okay. So I do have something planned for today, but you have to admit this is pretty fun. I paid five bucks for everyone to whistle this really high-pitched note in the office all day to drive Jean nuts. I had them practice it just so we could get the note right. It's been pretty great watching Jean slowly growing insane."

From inside the office, another whistle can be heard. This one seems to be coming from the corner that Connie Springer and Sasha Braus sit in.

"Okay, which one of you guys did that?" Jean shouts, ready to stomp over to where Connie and Sasha are - the two customer service representatives getting ready to sprint out of the door if worse comes to worst - but he whips his head around after he hears another whistle come from one of the sales desks.

"Sasha's one of the best whistlers I've ever heard. She could probably be a professional and quit her job. You know, if professional whistlers were a thing. Oh, and Mina's surprisingly good. Great poker face too," Eren says, his voice full of admiration for the two ladies.

In the office, a cacophony of whistles can be heard. Just when Jean turns around to find the source of the noise, another whistle can be heard in a different direction, causing him to turn once more and look for a new culprit. He whips his head around so quickly that it looks like he might give himself whiplash. All the coworkers participating have their heads ducked down so as to hide their smiles and make it less obvious when they're whistling.

"Oh, it looks like he's going to crack now," Eren says giddily as he watches.

He's right. While the whistles continue, Jean now stands in the middle of the room, defeated. His fists are clenched at his sides and he raises his head, looking as if he's about to scream, but he catches something in the corner of his eye. It's Connie, his head poked out curiously from his cubicle and his lips pursed. It is, however, the sound that comes out of his lips that becomes his undoing.

The smooth, high whistle that had been heard throughout the office isn't what leaves his lips. No, it is a sound that is very different. It's a pathetic excuse for a whistle, the noise of a child messily blowing out birthday cakes mixed with a dry, raspy whistle-like noise that isn't quite there yet. The sound of it is so horrendous that the entire office floor goes quiet. The only noise that can be heard after that is Jean's heavy breathing and Connie's quiet, "Oh, shit."

"Connie!" Jean bellows, running after Connie before the man can run away. He grabs the poor customer service representative by the collar, bringing him close as he growls, "What the _fuck_ is going on?"

"Ah, shit," Eren mutters, turning away from Jean questioning Connie and Connie stuttering back nonsensical answers. He sighs and scratches the back of his neck. "Connie is one of the people I paid five bucks to _not_ whistle. Not because I hate him but because he sucks at whistling. I mean, you heard him right?"

In the background, Connie's voice can be heard saying, "Eren paid us to do this!"

"And I paid him five bucks to not rat me out," Eren says darkly. He sighs again before peaking out of the conference room door, assessing the distance between where he is and the door to the hallway outside to see if he can make a run for it. He looks back at the camera. "I gotta run. I'll catch you guys later!"

Eren Jaeger bolts out the door, stopping by the receptionist's desk briefly to tell Miss Carolina that he's taking an early lunch break, and sprints out into the hallway. Jean Kirstein is hot on his heels and screams of "JAEGER!" can be heard down the hall.

Just a normal day in Shiganshina Paper Company.

* * *

 **A/N:** _For some reason, my grammar correcting app does not recognize Jean as a real name..._

 _Thank you for reading and taking the time to review/follow/favorite if you enjoyed!_

 **Word Count:** _1313_


	51. Tingo

**A/N:** _I used to steal my sister's stuffed animals one by one until she finally noticed they were missing. Then she started to do it to me! It was a fun time._

 _Canonverse._

* * *

It's midway through dinner when Marco finally realizes that food is slowly disappearing from Jean's plate and it's not because Jean's the one eating it. No, two other people happen to be mooching off his plate and no one else at the table seems to notice this except for him. That's what Marco thinks until he sees Armin's voice grow a little more startled and frantic whenever Jean's gaze begins to drift back to his plate. He only calms down once he's sure Jean is looking at him and only him again, allowing Sasha and Connie to steal more food now that Jean's attention is elsewhere.

Marco should have known that something was amiss when Armin had decided to sit with them at dinner tonight. It's not that he dislikes or that Armin is unfriendly with anyone else currently sitting at the table. It's just that Armin is friends with Jean's mortal enemy, Eren Jaeger, and he was sure that some sort of scuffle would break out if Eren ever saw Armin eating with Jean Kirstein, but Armin had simply told his childhood friend he has to discuss 3DMG training with Jean since he's pretty much the most talented person in their division when it comes to 3DMG. Marco could see that Eren was disgruntled but had accepted Armin wouldn't be eating with him and Mikasa that night because, as much as he hated to admit it, Jean's pretty damn good with 3DMG and swinging through trees. When nothing happened after that, Marco thought he could relax and that dinner would go smoothly, but it appears he was wrong all along.

He understands why Sasha and Connie had chosen tonight of all nights to steal Jean's food. It's fried chicken, definitely one of the better meals cooked in the dining hall, and a food that Jean cuts up, making it easy to take pieces one by one while he's not looking. In fact, Marco hadn't realized it himself until he had seen that Jean's plate was half-empty. The only reason that Jean hasn't realized it yet is because he has yet to look at his plate; he's too immersed in his conversation with Armin.

When he looks at Sasha, a confused expression on his face, she simply winks at him after spearing another piece of chicken onto her fork and popping it into her mouth. Connie, upon seeing that Marco has realized what's happening, gives him a cheeky grin.

He's very used to witnessing Sasha and Connie's pranks. They're usually harmless, the most offensive of their stunts being humiliating a Military Police officer during one of their vacation days in Stohess. (Marco didn't really mind that one. The officer was a pompous dick after all, and Marco usually doesn't think such things about people unless they're truly terrible.) This, however, is going too far. Not only are they depriving Jean of his meal, they're also roping Armin into this. He's not sure how they got Armin to play along in this scheme of theirs, but it's very apparent that he's not helping them of his own free will.

That doesn't matter, Marco decides. He'll be the one to put a stop to this.

"Jean," he begins, but he's quickly interrupted by Sasha, who pretends to choke on her food.

Jean can only give Marco a quick glance before turning to Sasha, who is so obviously fake choking that Marco can't see why Jean can believe her poor acting. He rubs her back though and quietly tells her to cough it out and offers her his water to drink.

Exasperated, Marco looks to Armin, hoping that he'll finally reveal this prank to Jean, but Armin only shakes his head quickly. He's wanted no part of this in the beginning, but he's in too deep now to be truly free of this once this joke is made known to Jean.

Connie, who sits on the other side of Jean and across from Marco, sneakily takes a generous chunk of chicken and places it on Marco's plate. When Marco looks at him, scandalized, Connie simply puts a finger to his lips.

"No!" Marco hisses. How can they believe he's one to be so easily bribed? Maybe the rest of them can be swayed by a piece of succulent chicken, but Marco is not like them. He frowns at them, giving a particularly disappointed look to Armin, and tries once again to attract Jean's attention. "Jean."

"What is it?" Jean asks once Sasha has stopped choking (or at least faking it).

Marco is about to reveal everything to him when someone kicks him hard in the shin. He cries out instead, clutching at his leg. He glares at Connie, but Connie doesn't seem intimidated at all. Instead, his friend simply takes his knife and mimes slitting his throat. A silent threat.

Jean doesn't see it at all though. He's too busy looking at Marco to notice anything around him, and he asks, "Are you okay, Marco? Don't tell me you're choking too."

This is his chance to finally uncover everything, but Armin lays a gentle hand on Marco's arm, nodding his head slightly. When Marco looks once more at Jean's plate, he sees that there are only a few bites left. He could tell him what's really happened, but it seems cruel to expose Jean's friends as less than trustworthy while Jean also suffers from an empty stomach.

"No, it's nothing," Marco finally says, sighing. What Jean doesn't know can't hurt him and it'll all be over soon anyway. "Just bit my tongue."

"Alright," Jean says, not believing him in the least. It's strange how he can see right through Marco's lie but he can't see through Sasha's terrible acting skills.

It only takes a minute after that for Jean to notice that his plate is surprisingly empty. "That's funny. I don't remember eating so much so fast," Jean says. He frowns when he sees that Connie and Sasha's plates are still half-full. How can his two more gluttonous friends not be finished with their dinner when he has? "I don't feel full at all."

Sasha's bold enough to be chewing the last bit of chicken that she had taken from Jean. "If you're really still hungry, you could see if they have anything left for you in the kitchens. I think there's only yesterday's meatloaf though."

Jean seems to be reluctant – is it better to go to sleep on an empty stomach or stuff himself full of disgusting meatloaf? He decides on the latter, it seems, and leaves the table in search of food.

"Don't think I enjoyed any of that," Armin grumbles as soon as Jean's out of earshot. He seems very distressed, his head in his hands. "I'm not helping you with anything like this again. I don't think Jean was even able to eat half of his food tonight!"

"Oh, you owed us anyway," Sasha says. Now that she isn't sneaking food from Jean, she's eating quite sloppily. There's grease on her hands from the chicken wing she's munching on and she smacks her lips, savoring the taste. "Did you forget the book we got you?"

"Yeah," Connie says, nodding. "You said you really wanted it, remember?"

"Armin, I thought you were better than this," Marco says disapprovingly. Of all the people in this trainee division, Marco had always believed Armin to be the least corrupted. Now his entire opinion of him has changed.

"No, no, that's not it," Armin says desperately, waving his arms as if to shake away whatever bad thoughts Marco has of him. "I said I would love the chance to read it. I did not mean that you guys should _steal_ it for me. In fact, that's the exact opposite of what I wanted."

"But you still helped us steal food from Jean anyway," Sasha points out.

Armin looks as if he's about ready to tear his hair out. "Because I felt bad that you stole this from that bookstore, but it's not like you could return it without looking like thieves. This is just to appease you so that you two don't get into any more trouble after this!" He looks to Marco, eyes pleading. "You understand, Marco, don't you? It's not like I wanted any of this. And besides, you helped them out in the end as well."

"Yeah, because he's a real pal," Connie says, nodding at Marco. He reaches out to pat Marco's arm. "Sorry I kicked you so hard earlier. I really just meant it to be a gentle tap against your shin."

Marco jerks his arm back, glaring at Connie. "Don't. I wasn't helping you out, I just felt bad and didn't want Jean to know you two were stealing from him, but don't think you'll get away with this. I'm telling Jean as soon as he comes back."

"What are you telling me?" Jean asks, sitting down. He looks disgruntled already, upset with the pathetic piece of meat that sits on his plate. His expression is so forlorn already and Marco can't bear to imagine his friend's frown becoming deeper.

"Nothing," Marco says hastily. "It's not really important anyway."

Jean looks at Marco for a while before shrugging and getting back to his food.

He'll let this one go, but he swears, glaring at Sasha and Connie as the two struggle to stifle their giggles, that next time he won't hesitate to expose them.

* * *

 **A/N:** _I wish I had more chances to write Marco, haha. He's fun although I think Sasha and Connie are the most fun to write for me!_

 **Word Count:** _1576_


End file.
